University Art Museum hosts panel on New Mexico’s nuclear legacy

In conjunction with the exhibitions “Cara Despain: Specter New Mexico” at the NMSU University Art Museum (UAM) and “Trinity: Legacies of Nuclear Testing – A People’s Perspective,” at Branigan Cultural Center (BCC), UAM will host a panel of artists and authors “who have influenced the conversation around nuclear weapons testing and production in the Southwest,” UAM said in an email.

“Artists and Authors on Our Nuclear Legacy” will be 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 19, at UAM, in Devasthali Hall, 1308 E. University Ave..

Moderated by Alicia Inez Guzmán, the panel includes artist Cara Despain and authors Josh Wheeler and Myrriah Gómez as they “share everyday stories of life in a region deeply impacted by nuclear legacies and investigate the way artists and authors can bring awareness to those stories,” the museum said.

Guzmán, raised in the northern New Mexican village of Truchas, “has written about histories of place, identity and land use in New Mexico,” UAM said. She brings this knowledge to her current role at Searchlight New Mexico nonprofit media organization, “where she focuses on nuclear issues and the impacts of the nuclear industry. The former senior editor of New Mexico Magazine, Guzmán has a Ph.D. in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester in New York.

Wheeler, from Alamogordo, wrote “Acid West” in 2018. His first book, it is a collection of essays about southern New Mexico. The book was included in The Paris Review and O Magazine 2018 “best of” lists and was a finalist for the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, UAM said. Wheeler’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's, The Iowa Review and other publications. He currently teaches creative writing and screen arts at Louisiana State University.

Despain was born in Salt Lake City and has a BFA from the University of Utah. Her work is included in the Rubell Family and Scholl Collections, as well as the State of Utah, Salt Lake County and Miami-Dade County and Miami International Airport art collections. Despain has had recent solo exhibitions at the Southern Utah Museum of Art, Kimball Art Center in Park City, Utah, and the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach.

Gómez is from the Pojoaque Valley in northern New Mexico. She has a Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in Latina/o literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Gómez is an assistant professor of Chicanx Studies in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico and an advisory board member for the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Gomez’s 2022 monograph, “Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos,” “demonstrates how earlier eras of settler colonialism laid the foundation for nuclear colonialism in New Mexico,” UAM said.

Branigan Cultural Center exhibit

“Legacies of Nuclear Testing” opens July 15 and continues through Sept. 23 at BCC, 501 N. Main St. downtown.

This juried exhibition includes work by 20 artists “who offer their perspectives, insights and responses to the effects of nuclear testing, nuclear accidents and uranium mining on the people, animals and environment of New Mexico,” the City of Las Cruces said. A wide range of art mediums is represented, ranging from photography and paintings to sculptures and multi-media collages. The exhibit was developed by the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. It is supported by an auxiliary exhibit that examines the long-term consequences of the 1945 Trinity test in the Tularosa Basin.

The world’s first nuclear explosion occurred July 16, 1945, at Trinity Test Site as the United States Army tested a nuclear weapon at Trinity Test Site (now part of White Sands Missile Range) in southern Socorro County, about 96 miles northwest of Las Cruces.

UAM is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Call 575-646-2545. Email artmuseum@nmsu.edu. Visit uam.nmsu.edu, click on “Programs” and scroll down to “Panel Discussion: Artists and Authors on Our Nuclear Legacy.”

BCC is open 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday.