Vol. 7: Finding Water in the West
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Vol. 7 — Finding Water in the West
From our exploration of place in Southwest Contemporary Vol. 6, it became evident that we needed to devote our next issue to water, for how inextricably connected it is to the land and to our future.
Water is elemental. It connects us through time, through seasonal flows, and ancient wellsprings. It is foundational, sustaining, essential to life.
Yet, here in the Southwest, the ongoing climate crisis is most keenly experienced through the observed precarity of our waters. We see droughts last decades, rivers overallocated, reservoirs dropping, lakes drying up. The “lack of water is the central fact of existence” in the West, as Marc Reisner warned decades ago.
In this issue, our features and essays take a detailed look at art through the lens of the various watersheds of the West. In Arizona, interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker Simone Johnson relays her personal experience exploring water futures, moving from the aqueous East Coast to the arid Colorado River Basin. In Utah, Scotti Hill surveys artwork related to the Great Salt Lake, from Robert Smithson’s iconic Spiral Jetty—once submerged, now high and dry—to other, more recent responses to the Lake’s depletion. In Nevada, Hikmet Sidney Loe looks at Maya Lin’s silver sculpture of the length of the Colorado River and other artwork about this contested waterway, and asks if art has the power to make a difference? Between Texas and Mexico, JD Pluecker, with artist Maria José Crespo, explores another contested waterway—the Rio Grande—and the liminal borderland it flows through.
This issue also holds a wellspring of artistic responses to themes of water—artists sensitive to arid environments who harness plants, harvest rainwater, and restore local ecologies; artists connecting to the divine, mystical aspects of water; artists calling for water activism and protection. We hope that these artworks and writings in this issue of Southwest Contemporary will inspire you to view water in the West with reverence—as more than a resource to fight over, but as a sacred source elemental to our collective survival.
Edited by: Natalie Hegert.
Guest juror: Lucy R. Lippard.
Contributors: Emily Arntsen, Sommer Browning, Trey Burns, Hannah Dean, Maggie Grimason, Natalie Hegert, Scotti Hill, Steve Jansen, Simone Johnson, Emily Lee, Camille LeFevre, Hikmet Sidney Loe, P. Antonio Márquez, Laura Neal, Edgar Picazo Merino, JD Pluecker, Nick O’Brien, Laurence Myers Reese, Deborah Ross, Lynn Trimble, Bianca Velasquez, d. ward, Joshua Ware, Andrew Weathers, Denise Zubizarreta.
Cover art: Matthew Couper, The Diviner, 2019, oil and mixed media on found book, 12.25 x 9.5 x 1.25 in. Courtesy the artist.
Vol. 7 — Finding Water in the West — Spring-Summer 2023
ISSN 2766-3000
Edition of 15,000
7.5 x 9.5 in, 104 pages
Perfect bound, offset-printed, full color on uncoated paper
Made in New Mexico
Printed in Colorado
Publication date: March 3, 2023
Please allow 5-10 business days for shipping and handling.