Panel Discussion: Artists and Authors on Our Nuclear Legacy
Wednesday, July 19th 2023, 6:00-7:30pm
The Bleachers at the UAM

In conjunction with the exhibitions Cara Despain: Specter and The Branigan Cultural Center’s juried show Trinity: Legacies of Nuclear Testing, join a panel of artists and authors who have influenced the conversation around nuclear weapons testing and production in the Southwest. Moderated by Alicia Inez Guzmán, artist Cara Despain joins authors Josh Wheeler and Myrriah Gómez to share everyday stories of life in a region deeply impacted by nuclear legacies and investigate the way artists and authors can bring awareness to those stories.

Moderator Alicia Inez Guzmán, Raised in the northern New Mexican village of Truchas, Alicia Inez Guzmán has written about histories of place, identity, and land use in New Mexico. She brings this knowledge to her current role at Searchlight, where she focuses on nuclear issues and the impacts of the nuclear industry. The former senior editor of New Mexico Magazine, Alicia holds a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies from the University of Rochester in New York.

Author Joshua Wheeler is from Alamogordo, NM. His first book, Acid West (2018), is a collection of essays about southern New Mexico. Acid West was included in The Paris Review and O Magazine 2018 “best of” lists and was a finalist for the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Harper's, The Iowa Review, and many other publications. He currently teaches Creative Writing and Screen Arts at Louisiana State University.

Artist Cara Despain was born in Salt Lake City, UT. She holds a BFA from the University of Utah (2006). Her work is included in the Rubell Family and Scholl Collections, as well as the State of Utah, Salt Lake County, and Miami-Dade County and Miami International Airport art collections. Recent solo exhibitions include FROM DUST at the Southern Utah Museum of Art (2020–2021); In Memoriam: Carbon Paintings at the Kimball Art Center in Park City, UT (2021–2022); and Specter at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, FL. (2022). Despain currently splits her time between Salt Lake City, UT and Miami, FL.

Author Dr. Myrriah Gómez is from the Pojoaque Valley in New Mexico. She earned her Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in Latina/o Literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is an Assistant Professor of Chicanx Studies in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico and currently an advisory board member for the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety. Gomez’s monograph, Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos (2022), demonstrates how earlier eras of settler colonialism laid the foundation for nuclear colonialism in New Mexico.