Kelly Akashi Glass Chimney for LA Wildfire Memorial at Whitney

This post examines California-based artist Kelly Akashi‘s Monument (Altadena), a monumental 821-piece glass-brick chimney. The work was created in response to her personal loss from the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and shown at the 2026 Whitney Biennial.

Alongside Inheritance (Distressed), a relief replica of her grandmother’s Corten steel dolly destroyed in the Eaton Fire, the works address memory and community resilience in a landscape changed by disaster.

Monument (Altadena): Form, Fabrication, and Context

Monument (Altadena) reimagines the chimney as a conduit for light instead of a solid mass. The piece is an 821-piece glass-brick chimney weighing 6,550 pounds (2,971 kilograms).

Each brick is hand-cast to challenge the usual idea of a chimney’s solidity. The work highlights the interplay of weight and fragility as a metaphor for memory and rebuilding.

It was fabricated and assembled in Akashi’s Hudson Valley studio. The sculpture was then installed on a Whitney Museum terrace in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District.

Akashi lost her 1926 home and studio to the wildfires of January 2025. She worked with a local group in Pacific Palisades and Altadena to recover materials and process the aftermath.

This loss shapes Monument’s formal and material choices. The piece translates grief into an artifact that can be walked around, lit through, and observed from many angles.

Monument (Altadena) connects private experience with public dialogue. It invites visitors to reflect on resilience in a city still recovering from climate-driven disaster.

• 821 hand-cast glass bricks
• Weight of 6,550 pounds (2,971 kg)
• Fabricated in the Hudson Valley, installed on Whitney Museum terrace
• Addresses memory, labor, and rebuilding after wildfire loss

Monument (Altadena) is paired with a related work that expands the conversation about destruction and recovery. The use of light through glass bricks turns the monument into a luminous record of care and persistence.

Materiality and Light as Memory

The glass bricks act as translucent vessels that let daylight and city lights pass through. This contrasts with the traditional idea of a chimney as a closed, heat-retaining structure.

Akashi’s focus on casting and glassblowing as time-based media shapes this shift. The piece transforms a symbol of shelter into a fragile archive of experience.

Weight and fragility coexist in the work. It stands as a record of labor and care after disaster.

Accompanying Work: Inheritance (Distressed)

Alongside Monument, Akashi presents Inheritance (Distressed), a relief replica of her grandmother’s Corten steel dolly destroyed in the Eaton Fire. This piece is not a direct reconstruction but a transformed form that acknowledges the persistence of everyday objects.

By reconfiguring the dolly as a relief, Akashi highlights the labor and memory in inherited tools. The work honors caregiving and rebuilding after catastrophe.

Labor, Care, and Material Persistence

Together, the two works explore how communities revive themselves after loss. Akashi’s approach centers on the labor-intensive processes of casting and assembling material history.

Her work honors those who endure and encourages conversations about resilience in wildfire-impacted landscapes.

Context: Fire, Recovery, and Public Engagement

The Whitney Biennial presentation places Akashi’s investigations in a larger cultural context. The 2026 edition runs from 8 March to 13 August 2026 and expands the conversation about climate disasters and recovery.

Akashi’s presence at the Whitney and her upcoming Venice Biennale participation highlight her role in exploring time, memory, and materiality in contemporary art and architecture.

Artist Practice and Exhibition Context

Across her decades-long career, Akashi has explored how memory builds through craft processes. By pairing glass casting with large-scale installation, she reframes the viewer’s relationship to built environments marked by fire and other disasters.

The installation photography, captured by Timothy Schenck, documents the sculpture’s form and the play of light, weight, and space on a high-visibility skyline stage. This invites architects, engineers, and preservation professionals to consider memory as a material in rebuilding efforts.

As the public faces climate-driven risks that reshape cities, Akashi’s Monument (Altadena) and Inheritance (Distressed) offer a framework for understanding how memory, care, and material persistence can support resilient design and community healing.

 
Here is the source article for this story: Kelly Akashi creates glass chimney as memorial to Los Angeles wildfire losses