Nancy Holt developed the idea for her landmark earthwork Sun Tunnels over three years between 1973 and 1976. Part of the process involved using cardboard tubes to model potential configurations for Sun Tunnels, and then photographing these models to understand the shifting shadows and scale of the earthwork. In these photo studies from 1975 we see Holt experimenting with the layout of the tunnels, trying out sizes and configurations of the constellations in the roof of the tunnels, and simulating the effect of constricting vision through the sculpture to frame the landscape.

Sun Tunnels is a twenty-six-minute film showing the making of Holt’s eponymous earthwork Sun Tunnels, located in the Great Basin Desert, Utah. Sun Tunnels comprises four concrete cylinders arranged in the landscape in an X formation, each 18 feet long and 9 feet diameter, perforated with a constellation of small apertures emitting patterns of light inside the tube.

As the name suggests, this is Holt’s plan for the holes that were to perforate one of the concrete tunnels, as proxy for the Perseus constellation, in her landmark earthwork, Sun Tunnels. In selecting the constellations for each tunnel, Holt required that the stars be of different magnitudes, with enough stars in each constellation to encompass the top half of the tunnel. She wanted to ensure the presence of a few star holes at eye level, to allow for views from both inside and outside the tunnel.

Twelve photographs of the horizon line correspond to twelve separate angles of sight, a foreshadowing of what will be the views from Holt’s majestic earthwork, ​Sun Tunnels. The photographs are mounted on paper and demarcated with cardinal direction, as well as the geographical landmarks featured within them. The drawing is both a preparatory tool and an allusion to Holt’s conceptual meditations; the lines radiating from the center suggest an infinite path of sight, while the photographs fragment the view, limiting us to a constructed experience of the landscape.

On July 14, 1976 Nancy Holt charted the evolving light and shadow falling to the interior space of one of the cylinders forming her landmark earthwork Sun Tunnels (1973-76). Every half hour, between 6:30 a.m.

Sun Tunnels: Shifting Shadows  is a photographic artwork depicting the shifting patterns of light and shadow over the course of one long summer day in one tunnel of Nancy Holt’s landmark earthwork Sun Tunnels (1973-76), located in Utah’s Great Basin Desert. The sculpture comprises four concrete structures arranged in a cross formation, positioned to frame the sun as it rises and sets during the solstices.