GOING WITH THE FLOW &
REPOSITORIES Book Signing
Thursday, April 20
United States: 10am PDT, 11am MDT, 12pm CDT, 1pm EDT
Europe: 17:00 GMT/WET
Going With the Flow: Art, Actions and Western Waters is an exhibition of works by artists and collectives based in the Southwestern United States, including members Basia Irland and Paula Castillo who have and continue to explore the role of water along the mighty Río Grande. During the exhibition, artists will engage the region with temporary artworks, interventions, community collaborations, talks, and performances that raise consciousness around pressing issues of water. April 14 through July 31, 2023 at SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico. Curated by Brandee Caoba and Lucy Lippard.
Over the last 150 years, the Río Grande, a colonized migrant traveling between three US states and two nations, has suffered tremendously from climate change and its causes: the fallout of centuries of human chauvinism. In the 20th-century, the impact of unsustainable practices continued with forced mechanistic applications on the river to purge it of its supposed natural wastefulness and excessive movements. By the 21st century, the river surrendered every drop of her water to a procession of governing bodies even before it fell as rain or snow from the sky. Castillo asks "Shouldn't she be entitled to some of the water she carries?"
For this event Irland and Castillo will discuss their works included in Going With the Flow. Following will be a book signing for Basia Irland: Repositories.
Image credits: ©Paula Castillo, from Reverse the Curse Community Events, "Amanda and Joe Tithing to the Rio Grande," (Alameda Bridge, Albuquerque, New Mexico), photo credit: Don Usner; and ©Basia Irland, wearing Río Grande, Source to Sea Repository on the banks of the river.
Member Speakers
Paula Castillo creates intimate and large-scale sculptural and performative installations that overlap with time across natural and human-driven historiography and ecological processes to reveal the critical interrelationship between humans, place, and environment and to expose the ideological forces that influence our conceptions of nature and relationships. She utilizes the literal and symbolic aspects of home places to experiment with ideas related to the broader American Southwest region to create allegorical narratives that imagine the immense complexity involved for any entity. The all-encompassing goal of her work is to expose our real, dense, and buried attachments to all 'others.' Castillo holds an MFA from the University of New Mexico in 3D Studio, focusing on Contemporary Theory, Human Geography in relation to water, and Relational Aesthetics. She is also working on three monumental permanent public sculptures, Glyph, Equis, and Trestle, for the Golden Triangle's Denver Art Museum Campus, revealing Denver's deep Mestizaje narrative. paulacastilloart.com
Using hybrid filmmaking and grassroots transformative performance, Reverse the Curse, included in Going With The Flow, considers how the human discovery of water legitimized the Río Grande's marginalization. This speculative performance and cinemagraphic reperformances imagine the river beyond a human resource as a subject with personhood deserving of protection. Reverse the Curse captures a democratic rendering of a local curandera-derived remedio to undo amal de ojo
curse on the RG.
Photo by Tiffin Zellers
Basia Irland has been working with scientists, students, activists and Tribal members for over twenty years along waterways across the US and Canada. With her ongoing art practice to create a deep and meaningful engagement with living bodies of water, the construction of Repositories emerged as a methodology for archiving documentation of research and physical engagements during Irland's riparian journeys. Repositories included in Going With The Flow are her Río Grande, Source to Sea and Traveling Kit In Search of a Tinaja. Irland will also perform an on-site launch of Ice Books along the Santa Fe River. Her new book Repositories: Portable Sculptures for Waterway Journeys, written by Patricia Watts and published in collaboration with ecoartspace, documents the construction of the artist's portable sculptures and the objects within which reveal rich stories of rivers through water data, watershed maps, artworks, plants, and seeds. basiairland.com
Irland is Professor Emerita, Department of Art and Art History, University of New Mexico, where she founded the Arts and Ecology Program over twenty years ago. She writes for National Geographic, contributed a chapter in the recent UNESCO Water Culture publication, and is a Knowledge Network Expert for the United Nations. Irland had a museum retrospective with catalog in the Netherlands (2015-16), and was included in the Biennale de Cuenca, Ecuador (2021-22).
BOOK SIGNING Repositories is available for purchase in the ecoartspace online store and at Curated, The Store at SITE Santa Fe starting on April 14. The book consists of a total of 152 pages with 80 full color images, and 11 unique maps locating the rivers and communities that Irland has engaged. The design is by artist Graeme Walker, who regularly contributes his work to the Dark Mountain Project in the UK; printed by Point B Solutions in Minneapolis using Forest Stewardship Council, FSC certified papers; hard laminated cover with Smyth sewn signatures and case binding, all features designed for durability so you can take this book with you to the river.
Purchase now (click image)
This event is open to the General Public for Free. All participants MUST REGISTER.
