“Fragile Vessels” Exposes the Toll of Extreme Heat

How do you describe the feeling of a 100-degree day in Austin? Temperature is at once an ephemeral and a universal experience – both clear and unavoidable, yet strangely evading description. It’s fitting, then, that “Fragile Vessels: A Gathering and Exhibition on Extreme Heat” included a bit of almost every media – documentary, field notes, thermal imaging, oil painting, film projection, zines, installation, and, of course, conversation – in an effort to explain and document what we all experience six months out of the year.

In partnership with Austin Public Health, Workers Defense Project, the UT-City CoLab, Go Austin/Vamos Austin, and the UT Digital Writing and Research Lab, documentary filmmaker Ái Vuong and UT Ph.D. candidate Maddie Bruegger created a multidisciplinary understanding of heat that lasted two days at dadaLab. Through community conversations and artist talks, a bilingual meditation emerged. The centerpiece was the Thermal Witnessing Project, a collection of thermal camera images and accompanying notes taken last summer by 15 Austinites organized by GAVA in the Rundberg neighborhood, one of the least protected from the heat in Austin. 

At first the images were hard to make out – blobs of bright orange, yellow, and blue with numbers on top – but, coupled with the notes, took on a slightly chilling significance. The numbers were the center, max, and minimum temperatures sensed by the thermal camera. 

“When I took this photo, the temperature gauge on my SUV indicated that it was 99 degrees Fahrenheit,” wrote resident Humberto A. Pérez on September 18, 2025, of a photo taken at the Northgate Shopping Center on the corner of Rundberg Lane and Lamar. “And as I look at this photo I can see that a significant portion of the parking lot asphalt and vehicles are in the 140 degrees Fahrenheit range.” 

“Rundberg Lane has a reputation for being an area of Austin that experiences higher rates of violent crime,” he continued. “Can you really blame the people in this area [for] being angry and furious as the heat coming up from the asphalt is 140 degrees?”

Below the painting, a hard hat, hi-vis vest, boots, and bags of concrete suggest that summer is enjoyed, or suffered, along class lines – while construction workers toil on 140-degree asphalt, remote workers Strava their jog around Lady Bird Lake and jump in Barton Springs.

Heat is a silent killer, and the deaths it causes are vastly underreported, according to a recent NPR study that estimated five times more deaths in the U.S. each year than the CDC reports. It can exacerbate cardiovascular disease, but the death certificate will only list a heart attack as the cause of death. It’s particularly dangerous for workers outside, something Angel Hernandez’s triptych of oil paintings, Mirage, depicts. 

In the piece, a construction worker raises his hand above his face to shield it, as ghostly runners, picnickers, and kayakers relax and recreate in a dreamlike tableau above him. Below the painting, a hard hat, hi-vis vest, boots, and bags of concrete suggest that summer is enjoyed, or suffered, along class lines – while construction workers toil on 140-degree asphalt, remote workers Strava their jog around Lady Bird Lake and jump in Barton Springs.

Works like Lisa B. Woods’ Dealing with the Elephant, One Room at a Time, a 15-by-15-inch box containing a rumpled dollhouse bed, are more universal. Thermal video is projected in a window pattern onto the wall of the “bedroom” and a static ceiling fan features lamely. We’ve all felt the unique malaise that comes from a 100-degree day outside our bedroom windows, permeating the indoors, especially if one lives without central air.

Lisa B. Woods’ Dealing with the Elephant, One Room at a Time Credit: Lina Fisher

On its own, the visuals of the show are a powerful document. But the residents’ lived experiences elevate the exhibition to the level of oral history, calling into question how well the municipal solutions we have are working. On October 17, 2025, Sayra Janeth Castro Galvan wrote, “I was thinking about how beautiful these bus stops look; they’re so elegant. I felt really, really bad and sad that we have this beautiful elegant bench but can’t use it – it’s extremely dangerous. It’s made of metal, it gets so, so hot that it can cause serious burns; the roof is useless.” 

Community members who spoke at a panel discussion on Sunday offered a simple solution: more tree coverage. Pérez said the project has inspired him to “want to advocate more … so that we can get our neighbors to plant some more trees. Because that’s the one area where we have control.”

Fragile Vessels October 3-4  dadaLab 

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