Extraction and Remediation

Description

8.5 in. x 19 in. print on matte paper

Extraction & Remediation. 16 x 20 in. Diptych.  Acrylic on Canvas.  2020.  Mallery Quetawki (Zuni Pueblo)

This painting represents the decades of mining on indigenous lands from the start of extraction to the current remedial efforts to clean up contaminated sacred sites.  The petroglyphs represent the acknowledgement of ancient customs as it collides with the modern world, hence the circuit board pattern.  This is also portrayed alongside the uranium vein within the soil.  It has the likeness of the petroglyph design as it is meant to “stay in the ground”, and further along it escapes the ground signifying extraction and causing the upper environment to become contaminated as the flowers wilt into radioactive symbols.  The recognition of modern technology melding with ancient customs is portrayed in the second part of the painting titled “Remediation”.  When these ideas work in tangent with one another, we can begin to heal our lands and our people.  Our Indigenous ways of life need to be heard and recognized in order to work with current clean-up efforts on our contaminated soils.  Sacred sites will always remain sacred and so will our stewardship to the lands in which we were all birthed.