An artist who has participated in many scientific expeditions, David Brooks believes that a great challenge of addressing climate change is that its effects are often imperceptible. To create Permanent Field Observations, commissioned as part of the 2018 Storm King exhibition Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, Brooks cast thirty ephemeral natural objects found within Storm King’s woods—such as tree roots embracing rocks or delicately intertwined branches—in bronze and permanently affixed them next to the subjects from which they were cast. As future weather patterns alter Storm King’s landscape in unknown ways, these intimate replicas will act as time capsules. As Brooks has stated, “I’m asking viewers to reconcile the intimacy of apprehending the sculptural object in the quietude of the woods with the vastness of the sculpture’s potential lifespan of thousands of years. Such a reconciliation of disparate perceptions is similar to how one might introspectively experience the conflicted notion and existence of climate change.”