Julie Weitz

Prayer for Burnt Forests

a short film and oral history project

2021-2023

Prayer for Burnt Forests is a film that extends upon the ethical imperative of tikkun olam (to heal the world) by upholding the land’s right to rest and recuperation. Together with Rabbi Zach Fredman, Weitz created a prayer intended to be read and delivered in nature as a gesture of respect, restoration, and genesis. In the film, a mythological golem traverses the recently-charred forests of Tongva land in Southern California, performing the prayer as a ritual dance. Prayer for Burnt Forests was commissioned by The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, as part of Weitz’s solo exhibition GOLEM: A Call to Action (2021-2022) curated by Heidi Rabben and Qianjin Montoya. The exhibition featured three of Weitz’s video artworks that draw on Jewish allegory and spiritual practice to confront societal and ecological disasters.

Like Chaplin’s hallmark satire of capitalism and fascism, Weitz poignantly brushes up against the absurd, and even the profane, to inject some joy into our troubled moment.

—48 Hills

In 2019, Weitz completed her basic wildland firefighter training at an art residency hosted by UC Berkeley’s Sagehen Creek Field Station in Tahoe National Forest (Washoe lands). A year later, she began collaborating with the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP), where she taught yoga and mindfulness meditation to formerly incarcerated firefighters. Through these classes, Weitz introduced wildland firefighting terminology alongside somatic practices, equipping firefighters with effective, practical methods to manage the intense stresses of fire incidents.

In 2023, Weitz launched Holy Sparks: Interviews with Wildland Firefighters, an oral history project capturing the voices and images of formerly incarcerated firefighters to honor their critical contributions to California’s wildfire response. Commissioned by UC Irvine’s Wildfire Project, this work will be preserved in the UCI Libraries Oral History Collection, celebrating these firefighters' dedication to protecting vulnerable lands and communities.

This project was filmed, photographed, and conducted on Tongva Land.

To support the rematriation of Tongva please consider a guest offering to the Tongva Tah-rah’-hat Paxaavxa Conservancy.