Introduction
I noticed the thread of erosion running through everything.
Since moving to New Mexico, I have been fascinated with understanding its monumental landscape and complex history. Exploring its public lands, historical sites, military installations, and government records the concept of erosion surfaced time and time again. This project investigates natural, cultural, and historical manifestations of erosion.
Mesas, the most visually distinctive feature of New Mexico’s high desert, are geologically unique. Most mountains are pushed up from the Earth, rising slowly over time. Mesas are formed in the opposite manner; plateaus which used to be the desert floor only seem to rise as land erodes and crumbles at their edges. This is both tactile, sand slipping through fingers, and monumental, as entire hillsides crumble to the ground.
The colonial history of New Mexico mirrors the erosion of its landscape. The southwest was not conquered in one war or one lifetime, but slowly, unevenly over many generations, leaving layers of colonial imprints on the land and the peoples. The ebb and flow of the Spanish, then American conquests, mirrors the shaping of the land.
On June 16th, 1945 the first atomic detonation, in the middle of the New Mexican desert, further altered the landscape and the structure of power. Much of the knowledge that lead to creation of the bomb was developed in the research facilities of New Mexico. Omission is the erosion of knowledge over time- complex realities become simple truths, victors become saviors, losers become terrorists. The redacted images this project presents illustrate intentionally selective framing and storytelling around New Mexico’s nuclear legacy.
Through these explorations I have come to understand that erosion is not just a gradual loss, but a constant reshaping.