At the top of the Space Needle, summer crowds swarm the circular observation deck, enthralled and thrilled by the transparent walls. A tourist with a British accent asks a stranger to take her picture while she sits on the glass floor, so it will appear as if she’s floating some 600 feet in the air. She giggles and says she’s petrified, then asks for one more shot — “This time with me looking down at the ground.”
She doesn’t notice the giant “SOS” visible in the grass below, a plea spelled out in 40-foot-long charred logs.
“Distress Signal” is one of three installations in a new temporary exhibit called The Smoke Season (on view through September 15) by Seattle artist Ted Youngs. A Washington state native, Youngs (48) enlisted architects, engineers, forestry workers, the Department of Natural Resources and the Pacific Science Center to help him realize his vision — an effort that, he says, was much easier than “bringing three million people out to the forests” to see wildfire damage firsthand.