Extant Erosions

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science presents a solo exhibition of new works by Albuquerque-based artist Emma Ressel. The exhibition, Extant Erosions, is Ressel’s MFA thesis exhibition submitted to the Department of Art at the University of New Mexico. The show will open Saturday, March 29th on the 2nd floor of the museum with a public reception at 3:00-6:00pm catered with refreshments by Finocchi and wine by Polychrome wines.

In Extant Erosions, Ressel examines natural history museums as a prism through which we refract our human understandings of nature, land, and time. As we hurtle toward what some scientists believe to be our planet’s sixth mass extinction, Ressel sees the natural history museum as an important space for the public to encounter present and past life, but also as an insufficient and even perverse gesture to “save” what has been lost. The show is comprised of still life photographs of specimens in museum collections and a reworked collection of 100 year old glass lantern slides housed in the geology department at UNM.