Garden Plots and Chatter at the Museum

Acoma Ancestral Lands Farm Corp, Archival Pigment Print, Triptych, 168” x 192,” 2019

A New Garden

A GARDEN: THE BIRDS ARRIVE is an earthwork and experimental garden located on the north side of the Albuquerque Museum on view through September 22, 2019. Created in conjunction with the SeedBroadcast exhibition Seed: Climate Change Resilience, this project is a collaborative installation conceived and created by University of New Mexico Land Arts of the American West artists and art and ecology students who call themselves 7th Regen.

During the excavation and through compacted layers of geology, gravel, soil, clay, and trash, the artists learned that the land under and surrounding the Museum building used to be one of the largest vegetable truck farms in the region. Prior to this, the area was home to many indigenous people and later, colonial settlers who farmed the river valley. The ground underfoot was buried in a history of many-species relations centered on food and agriculture that does not exist there anymore. Currently, the surrounding land has been developed into museums, parks, a diverse suburban community, industry, tourist shops, and restaurants.

The garden was seeded with a winter cover crop of Middle Eastern and Southwest Asian heritage grains. After the winter grains are removed, amaranth—one of the oldest grains in the Americas—will be planted with great intention and ceremony. The resurgence in heritage grains is based on several factors, including the biodiversity they engender, their ability to survive in challenging environmental conditions, and the quality of nutrition they offer.

ERIC J. KELLER/SOULCATCHER STUDIO

A Resilient Relationship

DIALOGUE AROUND GLOBAL WARMING, local food, healthy communities, and the revitalization of bioregional indigenous agri-cultural practices are the themes of Seed: Climate Change Resilience, an exhibition at the Museum through September 22. The conversation turns musical with Chatter’s tenth annual August concert series.

The concerts share music from across centuries and explore nature, the seasons, and life’s questions and challenges. Classics from Bach and Mahler alternate with modern masterpieces and a world premiere.

The first concert features “Everything That Rises,” a piece for string quartet by contemporary American composer John Luther Adams. Comprising one monolithic musical image undergoing constant, gradual evolution, this music will expand and alter listeners’ sense of time and space.

Pianist Judith Gordon returns to Albuquerque to play Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” for the second concert. Complex structures and relationships are