2025 Shelter

Curator Essay

Structures: Shelter V. Bunker

From the beginning of time, humans and animals have lived in shelters. Neanderthal man sought shelter in caves. Birds built nests, and other animals built shelters in holes dug in the ground and other sanctuaries that blended in with the environment. All did this to ensure safety, comfort, and social needs.

Today, shelters are our homes or living environments. They protect us from the weather and provide private spaces in which to raise families. However, our homes are increasingly being threatened by environmental disasters like earthquakes, exploding volcanos, fires, and floods.

We live in an age where our shelters can no longer protect us from more catastrophic events. Our homes cannot withstand nuclear disasters. Russia has threatened the use of nuclear weapons on various occasions in its war against Ukraine. The whole world is uneasy with North Korea testing nuclear weapons in the present time, and the United States is proposing to renew nuclear testing. Deterrence has worked in the past, but it may not hold in a world that is becoming increasingly dangerous.

Shelters are built above ground for civilian purposes; governments build bunkers underground for military purposes. Though we do not know all the underground bunkers that have been built, we know that President Tito of the former Yugoslavia completed one in 1979. The United States has a functioning bunker at Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Bunkers are primarily built to protect government officials so that they can keep their government running in a post-nuclear world.

Since the general population will not have access to such protection, we must protect ourselves by using our minds to generate creative ideas that will convince world leaders to NEVER allow a nuclear war. The best scientific minds created the BOMB, and the best human minds must present convincing moral arguments to prevent its use in our lifetime, or in any other lifetime. The survival of our planet depends on bridging our differences through PEACE initiatives.

— Dr. George Rivera, Artnauts Founder & Shelter Exhibition Co-Curator, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado Boulder