Burial Grounds
Burial Grounds is located in El Cerro Mission, 30 minutes south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Over the years, this rural area lined by mobile homes has evolved into a makeshift landfill. Tires, speedboats, furniture, garbage bags of house waste, and animal carcasses are all discarded on this site. Since the cost of disposing this waste at a regulated landfill can be prohibitive, the desert becomes an open burial ground.
Manipulating this trash into unexpected forms solicits people to stop and look at this oddly ordinary presence in the landscape. In the span of a day, islands of tires are stacked and painted into colorful towers; a mule carcass overflows with shards of colorful glass, plastic, and toys; a speedboat blossoms with salt cedar branches. While neighborhood residents of El Cerro Mission visit this barren space only to dispose of trash, the art they encounter becomes an unavoidable mark of how alien the trash actually is.
Vecinos Artist Collective
Lead artist Jorge De la Torre
Get a preview of Burial Grounds!
Friday–Saturday, October 18–19, 2013
Mana Mart (the Burial Grounds site is nearby–stop inside Mana Mart for a snack and for directions to the project site)
242 El Cerro Mission Blvd, Los Lunas, NM 87031
OCTOBER 12, 2013 - OCTOBER 19, 2013
High Desert Test Sites hits the road for a full week of experimental art and exploration, from Joshua Tree to Albuquerque!
HDTS 2013, the ninth program in a series of free ranging and ever evolving contemporary art events, expands our range and depth to take in everything from Joshua Tree, California to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Roughly 60 new projects will take place over an entire week, during which artists and audience alike will traverse over 700 miles of desert roads to check out the new work and explore the hidden gems and diverse desert communities along this spectacular stretch of the Southwest.
Project sites include: Amboy Crater, Arcosanti, Area 66 (Yucca), Art Queen (Joshua Tree), Bluewater Lake State Park, El Malpais National Monument, El Rancho Hotel (Gallup), Giant Rock (Landers), Hill Top Motel (Kingman), Magdalena Ridge Observatory (Socorro), Mill Restaurant (Crown King), Montessa Park (Albuquerque), Palms Restaurant and Saloon (Wonder Valley), Petrified Forest National Park, Octopus Car Wash (Albuquerque), Pink Post Office Projects (Wonder Valley), Tamarind Institute (Albuquerque), Warehouse 1-10 (Magdalena), in addition to our regular HDTS sites.
The week’s festivities include a Saturday night opening dinner (first-come-first-served) at The Palms in Wonder Valley October 12, with musical performances by The Sibleys and The Renderers.
A zine-style publication, designed by Brad Hudson Thomas, with original texts by James Trainor and Eden Solas, will accompany the event.
