Addison Key - The Daily Lobo

Culture

Land, Body and Archive highlights student work

Addison Key | September 11

There is a deep history of collaboration between students in the Southwest, specifically in the photo medium, Anna Rotty said. The Southwest Photo Collaborative is a group of graduate students from the University of New Mexico, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. Rotty – a third-year graduate student studying photography – worked with a small group of students to create and curate an art show titled, “Land, Body and Archive” in the John Sommers Gallery with an opening reception on Friday, Sept. 10.

Culture

Christoph Wagner makes the strings sing

Addison Key | August 20

Christoph Wagner always wanted to play the cello. The new assistant professor of cello at the University of New Mexico, Wagner started playing when he was six. Wagner says he watched his sister play the cello and never doubted that it was the instrument for him. What attracted him was the versatility of the instrument. “You can do so many things with this instrument. You can play very low, you can play very high pitches. So you can mimic a huge spectrum of expressions, sounds, timbres and colors,” Wagner said.

Culture

Queer anthems take over the dance floor

Addison Key | July 24

Queer people of color created house music, Justin Cristofer said – a Queer DJ, promoter and producer in Albuquerque. Cristofer aims to take the idea of a Queer DJ and expand it beyond pop music as well as highlight the history of house. House is a music genre characterized by having four-to-the-floor musical patterns and the tempo of 120 beats per minute, according to Harper’s Bazaar. Bringing house music to Queer Albuquerque spaces, Cristofer said, honors the history of the genre.

Culture

Carmen Selam plays with pinks, printmaking and Polly Pockets

Addison Key | July 21

Utilizing a variety of mediums and the color pink, Carmen Selam – a Queer Indigenous artist – uses pop-culture references and specific colors to amplify themes of Indigeneity and Queerness in her artwork. Currently, she is experimenting with risograph printmaking to create a zine titled “Resbians,” a combination of the words “lesbians” and “reservation.” Selam is Yakama and Comanche, and said she finds herself incorporating those two identities throughout her artwork. She calls herself “Yakamanche” – a combination of the two.

Culture

Art educators challenge 'art world'

Addison Key | July 19

Marina Perez, a contemporary Indigenous arts PhD student at the University of New Mexico, struggles with the concept of the art world. The art world often creates barriers for communities of color, which makes it harder for them to enter it, Perez said. It produces a binary between fine arts and community arts, contemporary arts and ancient arts. The separation, they said, often makes it hard for people of color to participate in the art world. “The art world is a colonial construct. To even think that we need to construct a completely different world away from our everyday lives … Communities of color don’t have access to be able to enter the art world,” Perez said. “Our knowledge is not embraced or acknowledged.”

Culture

Horror Fest finds value in continuity

Addison Key and Tristan Huffman | July 11

With the goal of becoming an annual event, Jeff Sedden – owner and promoter of the Morgue and Krypt Horror Fest – planned the first one t in Albuquerque two years ago. A trustworthy team, Sedden said, has been the most important part of the Horror Fest’s success. Albuquerque has other conventions, but the overall goal of the horror convention, Sedan said, is to ensure that it becomes a staple in the community.

Culture

UNM gains a photography professor

Addison Key | July 7

Sara Abbaspour – the new assistant professor of photography – completed her bachelor's in urban planning and design at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Iran; she picked it because it was the closest STEM major related to art. The research that the major required introduced her to photography – a passion that she ultimately followed. “We had to study different neighborhoods to be able to design for the people, and photography was a major part of it — to study the environment, to know the environment better or to study the behavioral patterns of people who are using that urban space … my love for photography started there,” Abbaspour said.

Culture

Risolana encourages community-focused art

Addison Key | July 2

An evolution of screenprinting, called Risographs, mixes a specific amount of four colors to create the artist's desired color. The risograph printer uses premixed ink and lays one color at a time. The process allows for vibrant and fluorescent effects as well as unique mistakes. Risolana – a community risograph studio in the South Valley – aims to educate on this process. In an effort to introduce risograph printing to the community, Risolana holds 30 Under 30 events on the 30th of every month; participants sign up, bring in any art work and create 30 risograph prints for $30, co-founder Karl Orozco said.

Culture

Green Earth Matters: eco conscious thrifting

Addison Key | June 25

“Green Earth Matters” was the original name of a newsletter Tara Ravishankar hoped to write – before there was an internet – about recycling resources in her local community. Now it is the name of her thrift shop, G.E.M. Ravishankar had always dreamt of opening a thrift store. She opened G.E.M. on Halloween of 2019 after a friend bought a house just north of 12th Street and Candelaria. She said she is primarily interested in keeping stuff out of landfills and creating a space for the community to donate the things they don’t want anymore.

Culture

NM museum's Relaxed Night

Addison Key | June 25

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science holds Relaxed Nights – sensory-friendly experiences for the public. Anthony Fiorillo, the executive director for the New Mexico Museum of Natural History, said the museum strives to make programming accessible to everyone and that Relaxed Nights are important to have. The Relaxed Nights stopped while the museum was closed due to the pandemic, but as the museum opens back up, they have decided to reintroduce them during their busiest months in March, June and July. The museum will also hold a Relaxed Night for veterans in November.