Electronic Thesis/Dissertation
 

Desierto Desierto

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Divulging temporal spaces and lost histories of identity in the midst of the desert, desierto desierto (2020) reimagines the gaps in passed down familial stories and my desire to preserve desert environments I have developed personal relationships to. I reposition fact and fiction, past and present by reconstructing erased collective memories. Against the backdrop of the Mojave and Chihuahua Deserts in California and New Mexico, respectively, my work deconstructs coexisting temporalities within a fragment of a wall at the property where my great great grandparents resided along with the disappearing populations of Mojave Desert plants. Through close observation, I captured and turned the ghosts of these plants into glass to consider environmental survival in relation to land use and colonial histories. I adapted the process of adobe brick making and reconstructed an imperfect replica of the wall remnant to bridge the multiple temporalities of my own family history and familial struggles of assimilation, cultural survival, and negotiation of the past. Through the lens of my own memory, I point to histories that are ignored by hegemonic structures. Ultimately, with these sculptural objects, I uncover larger truths about cultural and environmental dynamics in contemporary society.

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