Artist-in-Residence: DesertArtLAB
In Residence: June 2, 2025 – June 16, 2025
Dee Ann McIntyre in Memory of Scotty McIntyre Artist Studio
DesertArtLAB is a Chicanx environmental artist collaborative dedicated to an interdisciplinary art practice exploring connections between ecology, art and community. Their work gives voice to and identifies complex political and social dilemmas that reveal themselves in our constructed and natural environments through projects that promote Indigenous/Chicanx perspectives on ecological practice, food sovereignty, self- determination, climate change, and a new understanding of living in the expanding drylands. Grounded in dryland indigenous knowledge systems, DesertArtLAB’s projects activate public space through participatory artworks and support the restoration of desert ecological systems through zero irrigation regrowth projects. DesertArtLAB is co-directed by April Bojorquez (Chicana of Rarámuri descent) and Matt Garcia (Chicano). They live and work in Pueblo, Colorado.
During their residency, DesertArtLAB will present ECOLibrary in the Dee Ann McIntyre in Memory of Scotty McIntyre Artist Studio at the Vladem Contemporary. Open to museum visitors, ECOLibrary is a socially engaged art project that provides an open-source platform for the sharing and exchange of place-based knowledge. DesertArtLAB will transform the Artist Studio into pop-up, ecology centered library, collecting and building the library during the course of their residency. Visitors are invited to stop in and learn about the various items the artists have added to their collection.
DesertArtLAB’s work has been presented nationally and internationally at venues such as: Holt/Smithson Foundation, Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (Paris, France), Galeria de La Raza (San Francisco, CA), Museum of Contemporary Native Art (Santa Fe, NM), Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA), and the Dom Museum (Vienna, Austria). They were the 2021 Mellon Artist-in-Residence at the Colorado College Fine Arts Center Museum and recipients of the Creative Capital Award in Emerging Fields.
Read more: http://www.desertartlab.com/p/about.html
Thursday, June 5 @ 11am – 1pm: Weed Walk
Meet in the lobby of the Vladem Contemporary | FREE
DesertArtLAB will guide the public in a participatory walking session through the Railyard Park Conservancy to problematize/decolonize our perception of “weeds.” Participants will have the opportunity to contribute to the production of a participatory map that will be on display in the ECOLibrary in the Dee Ann McIntyre in Memory of Scotty McIntyre Artist Studio at the Vladem Contemporary.
More event details at this link: https://www.nmartmuseum.org/events/weed-walk-with-desertartlab/
Saturday, June 7, 9am – 2pm: Cactus Swap
Railyard Artisan Market | FREE
DesertArtLAB’s Cactus Swap is a site-specific installation: a swap meet for cactus. Community members are encouraged to bring cactus clippings and other indigenous plants of the region to share/exchange. DesertArtLAB will also be giving away cholla clippings. Stop by for some free cacti clippings.
More event details at this link: https://www.nmartmuseum.org/events/cactus-swap-with-desertartlab/
The artist-in-residence program is generously supported by a grant from the Frederick Hammersley Fund for the Arts at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.