The San Luis Valley stretches 125 miles long and more than 65 miles wide, from Colorado down into New Mexico. “It’s a mythical place,” says the 37-year-old artist Marguerite Humeau. In the world’s largest alpine valley, she’s created Orisons, a 160-acre plain populated by hammocks and abstract, wind-activated sculptures. “The closest cultural institution to [Orisons] is a U.F.O. watchtower.”
Up since last July, Orisons is one of the largest pieces of land art ever made by a woman, and Humeau’s most ambitious project to date. Over three years—and with help from a team of 52 experts, including conservationists, ornithologists, and geomancers—she installed 84 sculptures in the valley. With gusts of wind, the small sculptures whistle in unison. The larger sculptures are meant to look like sandhill cranes.
