Desert Breath is a stunning earth work in Egypt, completed in 1997 by artist @DanaeStratou and her team. It’s pretty much just displaced sand piled into a spiraling pattern on the desert floor. What’s fascinating and surprising is that it has remained intact almost 20 years after it’s completion.
I’ve lived in the American Southwest and also in the Northwest — one desert environment, and one mostly forest and water. It’s interesting how time affects each of these types of landscapes differently. It moves so much slower in the desert. Human marks can last decades, even centuries. But in the forest, all that extra water allows nature’s processes of decay and growth to happen much faster. Human imprints can be wiped out in a much shorter timeframe.
