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| Air, Land and Seed Catalog Cover |
Last night we enjoyed yet another in a long series of literary evenings since we moved to New Mexico nearly a year ago now. Some of the same artists were part of it, but the focus was quite different.
In some ways, I was reminded of some of the events we presented at our theater-cum-gallery space in Sacramento back in the day. But last night's event was ultimately intimately an aspect of the culture clash that lies at the heart of the social, political and economic reality of where we are now.
Albuquerque is far and away the Big City in New Mexico; size-wise no place else is even remotely like it. Yet by standards of California, Texas or even Arizona, for that matter, Albuquerque is still a pretty small town, with a Metro population of under a million. From my perspective and the perspective of more than a few environmentalists, that's still too many, for the water resources are so slender, that many people is about twice as many as can comfortably be accommodated for very long. Some of the experts will say that far more than twice as many live in the Abq Metro area as should do so. At some point, who knows when, but probably not so far in the future, the population will have to be reduced. Significantly.
That dark vision was part of what came to mind as I checked out the exhibit at the 516 ARTS gallery called Air, Land and Seed (pdf). It's a traveling show, in a sense, in that it debuted at the 2013 Venice Biennale before being installed at the 516. Or at least that's how I understand it. Luci Tapahonso, as Poet Laureate of the Navajo Nation, got a gondola of her own, according to Sherwin Bitsui, who went to Venice for his second Biennale, a gondola in which she was swanned around the canals of Venice, perhaps becoming for a moment... someone else.
