The Deming Triangles Explained

ABOUT 20 MILES southeast of Deming, the desert floor opens into a shallow, rock-lined crater, bordered by six concrete lines and a pair of triangular slabs. A nearby marker suggests an otherworldly cause: A single grain of sand, flung from an intergalactic ocean floor during the epic Battle of Some Times, struck here with improbable force. This is the Faltese Pømzhirl Impact Site or Triangles, part of a mythic parallel universe called Kcymaerxthaere created by artist and storyteller Eames Demetrios, grandson of designers Charles and Ray Eames. Since 2003, Demetrios has installed more than 150 “historical markers” in 30 countries, each one anchoring a sprawling fictional world in real landscapes. “I don’t want to trick people,” he explains. “I want them to suspend disbelief out of the real world and conjure it up for themselves.” In 2011, Deming became the 72nd installation after Demetrios bought the land on eBay. “I love the landscape of southern New Mexico,” he says. “It seemed like a great place to describe something indescribable, where you have a kind of a blank slate.” His crew hauled 44 tons of stone from Los Alamos to the remote site during a monsoon, dodging floodwaters and “toads coming out of the ground and badgers swimming.” For Demetrios, the work is about opening possibilities. “Even if you stumble on it knowing nothing,” he says, “I hope you’re reoriented for a moment—invited to imagine differently.” In the wide silence of the Chihuahuan Desert, the story feels almost true.