Feature image: Swimming pool at Coronado Club, Sandia Corporation, 1951, courtesy of the Albuquerque Museum via the Albuquerque Journal
“Nuclear Communities of the Southwest” Exhibit
The Albuquerque Museum features the exhibit “Nuclear Communities of the Southwest.” This historical exhibit has been running from March 23rd, 2024, until September 15th, 2024, and historical objects such as videos, photographs, and quotes from Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base. The goal of “Nuclear Communities of the Southwest” through the historical objects and artwork acknowledges how Southwest communities, specifically employees, civilians, and Indigenous communities, were impacted by nuclear activity and testing during the 1940s. Tragically, many people ended up getting sick with cancer due to toxic chemicals and poisonous atomic materials. The exhibit displayed the artwork of the following artists: Luis Jimenez, Diane Palley, Tony Abeyta (Dine), Jesse Phillips, Emmitt Vooher, and Patrick Nagatani. All of whom used their artwork to convey how horrendous nuclear activity was on civilians and the environment. We will review the artistic message all the artists portrayed through their artwork, bringing to light the historical environmental crisis the Southwest communities faced from the 1940s to the present.
“The hair on the cows grazing in the area (San Antonio, New Mexico) turned white…laundry hung outside on the line turned black and had to be rewashed. The blast made its own rain.”
The exhibit focuses on the artistic message of “Nuclear Communities of the Southwest.” The narrative is “telling the stories of the people impacted by and in some cases who had a hand in creating nuclear New Mexico.” Fortunately, in the past year, people living outside the southwest, like me a year ago, became aware of nuclear activity, thanks to Christopher Nolan’s 2023 Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer. The “Nuclear Communities of the Southwest '' exhibit started with Oppenhemier’s work on The Manhattan Project at the Trinity Site in Los Alamos. In 1943, New Mexico’s nuclear history began when Oppenheimer arrived at Los Alamos, which marked the start of a nuclear age and activity within the southwest. It wasn’t until two years later, on July 16th, 1945, that Oppehemier developed the first atomic weapon called “The Gadget.” This was the birth of a nuclear utopia. The definition of nuclear, according to the Albuquerque Museum, entails the meaning of terms such as “nuclear family” and “nuclear age.” The exhibit's big question through their collection is, “How do artworks reveal the consequences of scientific innovation?”In addition to Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project, many scientists and engineers were hired to work at the Sandia Base, now known as Sandia National Laboratories, an extension of Los Alamos.
“I ran in the house to tell my mother, “aqui viene la bola pa’ tras” - the Ball is coming back towards Tularosa.’
The exhibit featured seven artists who protested against nuclear testing and laboratories during the mid-1970s and into the present. The following artists called to action how horrific atomic activity is to the Southwest environment and medical health, causing cancer. Many of the artists had relatives who lived during the nuclear activity in the 1940s and 1950s. In addition, some artists had radiation cancer as a result.
Artists in the 1970s
Beginning in the 1970s, artists Luis Jimenez and Diane Palley addressed how nuclear activity impacted the environment in the southwest. Luis Jimenez’s Mountain Spirits Dancing with Nuclear Rods (Espíritus de la montana bailando con barras de combustible nuclear) was on display. Jimenez’s lithograph on paper features a black-and-white skeleton standing before a human. According to the Albuquerque Museum, Jimenez’s artwork “combines the words of science and nature by imagining personified mountain spirits incorporating nuclear reactors in their ceremonial practice.” As an artist, Jimenez offered his perspective on nuclear power and its effect on the world, specifically nearby Indigenous communities. The skeleton and the bones in the background art are images of Indigenous people who suffered from nuclear power and energy. In contrast, Diane Palley further carried on the conversation of environmental issues for Indigenous communities in her artwork, Stop the Rape of Mount Taylor (Detengamos la profanacion de Mount Taylor). To support Paley's work, the Albuquerque Museum acknowledged, “Uranium mining is both a profitable and necessary element in nuclear production. In April 1979, Indigenous and New Mexican activists protested the potential mining of Mount Taylor.” Uranium mining had become widespread and problematic, having taken over the Navajo Nation, and a horrific spill happened in Church Rock, New Mexico. Thus, the spill contaminated the waters along the Rio Puerco and Arizona. To protest against uranium mining, Paley didn’t hesitate to write “Stop the Rape of Mount Taylor: Uranium Mining Kills All Living Things” in her lithograph on paper, and another piece of her art known is titled Citizens For Alternative Radioactive Dumping New Mexico Rufeses to Become the Nation’s Deadly Dump.
Artists in the 1980s
Tragically, by the late 1980s, another artist, Patrick Nagatani, featured his artwork, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Nuclear Crossroads, U.S. 285,60, 54, Vaugn, New Mexico. His chromogenic print features the southwest landscape with roadrunners lying dead on the side of the road. The Albuquerque Museum enhanced, “The barren desert floor and sickly yellow and green sky create the backdrop for Patrick Nagatani’s interpretation of the only underground nuclear waste repository in the United States.” Roadrunners are New Mexico’s state bird, and seeing them dead because of nuclear waste is a further reminder of nuclear atrocity.
Artists in the 21st Century
By the 21st century, contemporary artists began using imagery of plants and war to convey the effects of nuclear activity. In 2004, Jesse Phillips drew a contemporary post-nuclear city titled 2nd Anniversary Celebration Atomic Cantina. The museum wrote, “Jesse Phillips creates a futuristic space-age scene in this promotional poster for the Atomic Cantina, a former Albuquerque bar.” Phillips juxtaposes a bundle of history from Western styles, such as a saloon in the distance and a Japanese rising sun, marking the Atomic Energy Commission-inspired Atomic Cantina logo in the left corner. This minor yet significant detail provides nuclear-themed imagery.
The Albuquerque Museum shared how this raised some questions of “a different meaning for New Mexicans whose lives are impacted by the continued growth of nuclear productions in the state.” Four years later, in 2008, Tony Abeyta (Dine) also used symbolic imagery of flowers. Abeyta created an ink wash and charcoal expanding onto canvases called Flower Bombs I-III. The flowers across all three canvases are “symbolic imagery to juxtapose an array of ideas in this triptych. While some forms appear to resemble flowers, they also reference bomb blasts, signifying death, military industries, and the destructiveness of war.” Abeyta’s goal was to consider and compare “an array of ideas in this triptych.” His ideas all revolved around bombs set off, wars fought, militaries who served, and death that followed. After all, Oppenhemier’s atomic bomb, which was created in Los Alamos, was set off in Japan, further escalating World War II between the United States and Japan.
Recent New Mexican Artists
Lastly, recently within the past six years, many New Mexicans have come forward having been diagnosed with cancer from exposure to nuclear chemicals in the land. In 2018, artist Emmit Booher photographed Tina Cordova, the co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, standing before the Trinity Site holding a poster. Tina’s poster reads, “I got cancer living downwinders of Trinity!” Unfortunately, two years later, in 2020, Tina’s niece, MacKenzie Cordova, released a digital metal drawing called The Sun. Tragically, MacKenzie, who was born in 1999, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was twenty-three years old. In her work The Sun, Mackenzie represents Tularosa’s St. Francis de Paula Church and a Zia sun symbol dangling above the church. The Cordova’s are among many families in the Southwest communities who have suffered from testing. Nevertheless, protesting on nuclear testing and activity continues today despite testing still taking place in New Mexico, such as White Sands. However, it’s a matter of informing the state and the people inhabiting New Mexico today of what lies among the land, which the Albuquerque Museum does a phenomenal job making visitors aware of.
©ArtRKL™️ LLC 2021-2024. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ArtRKL™️ and its underscore design indicate trademarks of ArtRKL™️ LLC and its subsidiaries.
