(2018)

Collaboration with artist, Rachel Zollinger

Soil collected from four geographic locations, indigo, New Mexico Ponderosa Pine, magnets (dimensions: 30’x 12’)

A topographic map of the New Mexican Rio Grande Water Basin, specifically the areas of Española, Los Alamos, White Rock, and Pajarito Mountain, was painted in soil collected from each respective region. This was done to honor those places through the skin of the place - the soil. Furthermore, painting a topographic map in soil depicts a map as it truly is, as a representation of something that can and most certainly will change and erode over time. The Rio Grande is painted on the map in a tiny-blue indigo line.

This mural locates the problematic chemical structures engaged with throughout the exhibition, Gently Radical Changing. These chemicals are made up of the building blocks of all life, but it is their arrangement that makes them harmful. Viewers were invited to take action with this piece and rearrange the materials to create new forms of life. In order for this to take place, viewers had to engage, otherwise the “toxins” remained in their fixed states. Each wooden bar was backed with magnets and could be moved to a location with three corresponding dots on the wall. Throughout the map, hints for nourishing structures could be found. Collaboration and play were encouraged.