Submergence Collective

Leah Mata Fragua

Bill Gilbert

Ian Kualiʻi

Ruben Olguin

Carol Padberg

(Santa Fe, NM) ecoartspace and Randall Davey Audubon Center present an outdoor site-works exhibition, sponsored by The City of Santa Fe, Department of Arts & Culture.

Where There is No Name for Art, Ogha Po’oge (White Shell, Water Place), includes six artists and a collaborative working with natural materials, making ephemeral site-works that will gradually return to the land. Honoring the history of the site at Santa Fe’s Audubon Center, the homelands of the Tewa people and Apache, this “non-art” is centered on the more-than-human world, thoughtfully engaging in the land.

Lucy Lippard, writer and art critic, brought to our attention in the early 1970s that art was becoming more of an idea than an object. She created a bibliography of works by 90 artists who were more concerned with process than object making—what she referred to as the dematerialization of art, which began in the late 1960s. At the time, contemporary Earth Art was in its early stages and was often linked with prehistoric Native American mound builders. Since then, this movement of art-in-nature has taken many forms, including Land Art, Ecological Art and Eco-Art, with an increasing consciousness of our interdependence with the natural world.

As Indigenous peoples have known for thousands of years, our human relationship with nature can only be that of kinship. In the children's book titled Where There is No Name for Art: The Art of Tewa Pueblo Children (Hucko, 1996), he learned in the Tewa language, there is no name for art; that creative ceremonial making is an integral part of daily life that honors the earth and the spirit world, and was historically made with natural materials. The artist's site-works at Audubon will embrace this integration of aesthetics and ecology while honoring the past, present, and future caretakers of the Santa Fe River Watershed.

Program Schedule

Opening Reception: August 17 from Noon till 4pm, including natural mineral and botanical pigments workshop display by ecoartspace members

Performance: Laura Ortman at the David J Henderson Pavilion, August 17 at 12:30pm

Durational Piñon Performance by the Submergence Collective, August 17 at Noon to 4pm

Making Circle: Earth and Fiber with Carol Padberg (cordage and clay bead making), August 17 at 1:30pm, donations welcome

Workshop: Papermaking and Natural Dye with Leah Mata Fragua, September 21 at 11am. $75 per person, scholarship available. 10 participants max. RSVP info@ecoartspace.org