Roswell Artist-in-Resident “ann haeyoung’s” exhibit focuses on technology, the environment and the impact on the local population
The newest exhibit at the Roswell Museum, “terra nullius,” is by multi-media artist “ann haeyoung,” a 2023-24 Roswell Artist-in-Residence (RAiR) program grantee. It is influenced by New Mexico’s technology, people and nature. Terra nullius means no-mans land or vacant land in Latin. The term also has a deeper, perhaps more sinister, meaning reflected in the exhibit. Historically, it had a legal application in the colonial annexation of countries as a way to dismiss the original “non-civilized” native population.
“That was the starting point,” haeyoung said. “When I arrived in Roswell, I had a lot of preconceived notions of what it would mean to be here and to be in a desert.”
Haeyoung said that this notion didn’t hold up to reality. “Why did I have these incorrect assumptions? That’s where the exhibition came from.
“When I hear the word desert, I think that it’s empty, it’s barren. There’s no life, there’s nothing happening. And it’s the opposite. There’s so much life here. I mean, obviously, people, but also so many animals and plant life, and I feel much closer to the movement of the planet, and the movement of the sun and everything. I don’t know what I was expecting what nothingness means. But this is the opposite of nothing. There’s just so much here. So that was exciting,” haeyoung said.
In the exhibition, the myth of terra nullius is examined through three objects, two sculptures and one video: the radio telescope, the mine and the optical telescope.
“The first sculpture is a focus for me,” haeyoung said. “I really wanted to have this be about sound, and so the first sculpture was inspired by the Very Large Array (VLA) near Magdalena.”
Twenty-seven small dishes…
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