Tilt Podcast / Episode 5
Grounded in archival research, oral history, and creative storytelling, Unsettled narrates relations across time, weaving in the identity crises of present-day Santa Fe and the controversy around the Soldiers’ Monument with a chronicle of events that begins before European contact and continues into Spain’s earliest occupation of Santa Fe in the 17th century. Looking outward, Unsettled also reveals that this region’s struggles are related to those taking place nationally and internationally by drawing on SFAI artists whose work addresses histories of colonization and their impact on the present. Reckoning with conflict and beauty near and far helps us imagine a future in which all our relations can tell rich stories of self and place.
View the Sifting Through The Sediment Panel Discussion which invited back guests from the series to dive deeper into some of the many nuanced topics addressed in the Unsettled Series podcast.
This podcast series is part of the Culture Connects Midtown Project. To learn more visit cultureconnects.site.
As SFAI navigates these uncertain times, we face new fiscal challenges. We are seeking support for this programming and ongoing operational costs — a portion of these donations will go to participating artists.
Part 1: Axis Mundi
Santa Fe reckons with one monument and the moments leading to its downfall, with Alma Castro, Darryl Wellington, and Virgil J. Vigil.
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
On Indigenous Peoples' Day, the Soldiers' Monument came thundering down into a heaping pile of rubble. Writer Darryl Wellington witnessed the hours that led to its ultimate collapse. One speaker, he recalls 'really started digging into the crowd. She just would repeat over and over “What are you gonna do white allies?”’ Gif by Story Maps Fellow Christian Gering.
Part 2: You're Not From Here
The Soldiers’ Monument arrived in 1868. Is it even from here?
With Porter Swentzell, Artemisio Romero y Carver and Heidi Brandow.
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
Soldiers’ Monument photo: Gurnsey, Byron H. / Palace of the Governors Photo Archive
Part 3: Oga Po'geh
Can acknowledging ancestral lands and indigenous relatives counter settlerism in Santa Fe? With Jade Begay, Porter Swentzell, Artemisio Romero y Carver.
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
Part 4: Ceremony in Balance
As a counter to the hunk of sandstone that was once invested with so much power to divide, this episode of Unsettled examines the blueprints that our communities already have for coming together and being in right relation. In fact, while the obelisk sat inanimate, in Indigenous and mixed Indigenous communities across the state and throughout the Americas, the Matachines performed histories of international relations, generation after generation. Episode 5, part 4, looks at these relations — and reconciliation — through the prism of this shared dance.
With Jason Garcia, Dr. Brenda M. Romero, Dr. David Garcia, and Dr. Bjorn Krondorfer
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
Part 5: Ceremony Out of Balance
When scientists harnessed energy for the creation of the atom bomb, they introduced another wave of colonization. Indigenous, mixed Indigenous, and Chicanx communities are still grappling with the consequences. With Beata Tsosie Peña and Yang Toledo.
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
Part 6: MUD
Porter Swentzell said history is mud. Jason Garcia called the people of New Mexico concrete. Embedded with stories near and far, and legacies of labor and memory, adobe is just as complicated.
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
Part 7: Colores Sospechos I
After Spaniards arrived in the Americas, they introduced a rigid caste system that attempted to define all the new mixtures of people born from miscegenation. Who are we now? Who were we then? And were those earliest colonists themselves colores sospechos?
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
Part 7: Colores Sospechos II
What other identities and connections to place have been erased over the course of the many waves of imperialism and colonialism? How do we seek those ancestors? And how can we generate new relationships to land, place, and culture based on these connections?
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
Part 8: Cleanse
We were born out of a mass genocide, Artemisio Romero y Carver said, and that violence has never been resolved in our culture. How do those ancestral wounds continue to persist in the present and what are some of the ways our communities, here and elsewhere, carry the medicine and resilience needed to heal.
With Dra. Rocio Rosales Meza, Veronica Iglesias, Joseluis Ortiz, Ralph Martinez, and Michelle Angela Ortiz
Music for this podcast courtesy of Wake Self from the album Ready to Live.
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