Santa Fe International Festival Showcases Tale-Weaving Potency
In the heart of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the SITE Santa Fe International exhibition, curated by Cecilia Alemani, offers a captivating journey through the region's rich cultural heritage. The exhibition, titled "Once Within a Time," draws inspiration from Godfrey Reggio's latest film and weaves together a diverse tapestry of stories, symbols, and experiences that reflect the cultural complexity of the Southwest.
At the core of the exhibition are twenty-seven "figures of interest," a diverse cast of local heroes, mythical beings, writers, artists, and healers, all deeply rooted in the Santa Fe region. These figures serve as a "family album," inspiring contemporary artists to create new works that delve into the region's history and the experiences of these intriguing characters.
The exhibition extends beyond the walls of SITE Santa Fe, spilling into museums, a hotel, and even a cannabis shop. One can find Minerva Cuevas' site-specific works echoing the environmental and cultural histories connected to the land and its peoples, while Will Wilson's photographs pair uranium mining sites in Navajo Nation with earthworks like Spiral Jetty, highlighting the intrusive nature of human intervention.
Uranium mining, with its dark history of health hazards and governmental negligence, is a recurring theme in the exhibition. Uranium miners, unaware of the deadly effects, took rocks home to build chimneys, potentially exposing more people to radiation. High rates of cancer were documented among miners, but the findings were not shared.
The exhibition also sheds light on the US government's treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. David Horvitz, whose grandmother was interned in Colorado, created handmade glass marbles filled with sand from a Japanese internment camp in Santa Fe's Casa Solana neighborhood, each marble representing one of the 4,555 men incarcerated there.
At the New Mexico Military Museum, the exhibition delves into themes of war and extraterrestrial life, featuring works by veterans and artists like Karla Knight and Ali Cherri. The film "The Watchman" by Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, shown at the museum, depicts soldiers with eerily sealed eyes and nighttime scenes reminiscent of alien invasions.
The exhibition also pays tribute to renowned writers like D.H. Lawrence, Cormac McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov, and Willa Cather, as well as historical figures like Chester Nez, a Navajo Code Talker. Ximena Garrido-Lecca's installation reconstructs a circuit board from the Apollo program, replacing its metal wires with ropes referencing quipus, Andean recordkeeping knots, while Godfrey Reggio, best known for his cult classic Koyaanisqatsi, is based in New Mexico.
In a thought-provoking panel discussion at the opening, David Horvitz questioned whether his marbles could be considered a memorial, implying that the US government is still kidnapping and detaining people of colour. The resulting spindly cats, hidden in unlikely locations around the biennial without wall labels, serve as a poignant reminder of this ongoing struggle.
In essence, the SITE Santa Fe International exhibition offers a multidimensional dialogue between historical identity and contemporary artistic expression, reflecting the cyclical storytelling traditions and the cultural complexity of the Southwest. The exhibition runs until September 4, 2023, providing a unique opportunity for visitors to immerse themselves in New Mexico's rich and complex history.
- The SITE Santa Fe International exhibition, curated by Cecilia Alemani, features a diverse array of artworks, including paintings, sculptures, installations, and drawings by contemporary artists.
- The exhibition, titled "Once Within a Time," also includes a section dedicated to "figures of interest," local heroes, writers, artists, and healers, who are deeply rooted in the Santa Fe region.
- Beyond the walls of SITE Santa Fe, the exhibition spills into museums, a hotel, and even a cannabis shop, with Minerva Cuevas' site-specific works and Will Wilson's photographs being prime examples of this extension.
- Uranium mining, with its dark history of health hazards and governmental negligence, is a recurring theme in the exhibition, as highlighted by works that pair uranium mining sites with earthworks like Spiral Jetty.
- The exhibition also sheds light on the US government's treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II, with works like David Horvitz's handmade glass marbles filled with sand from a Japanese internment camp.
- At the New Mexico Military Museum, the exhibition delves into themes of war and extraterrestrial life, featuring works by veterans and artists like Karla Knight and Ali Cherri, whose film "The Watchman" depicts soldiers with eerily sealed eyes and nighttime scenes reminiscent of alien invasions.
