Where We Meet: Conversations from New Mexico and Beyond

Ray Sandoval , the Zozobra Event Chairman, tells us about the origin of Zozobra. Each summer, the gloom marionnette is carefully crafted, at once physically as a structure of wood, wire and paper, and metaphysically, by the gathering of people who contribute their gloom before they burn it to restore hope. Sandoval reflects, in this conversation, on the celebration itself, its significance and its...

An American poet, spoken word artist, subsistence farmer, and water rights activist from Taos, New Mexico, Olivia Romo addresses the deep and rich history of Northern New Mexico.

Dr. Ivan Deutsch ’s background is in atomic physics and optical physics and he has been working at the University of New Mexico for over 25 years within the Physics and Astronomy department. Currently the director of the Center for Quantum Information and Control (CQuIC), which is funded by the National Science Foundation, Deutsch is responsible for one of the longest standing centers for fundamen...

Julia Reinhard Lupton teaches English at the University of California, Irvine, where she co-directs the New Swan Shakespeare Center and serves as Interim Director of the UC Humanities Research Institute. In this conversation with Colette LaBouff, Lupton shares how her academic and community work explores connections between William Shakespeare and a diversity of life elements. She works with commu...

Dr. Sharon Erickson Nepstad is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of New Mexico. Her research spans the globe focusing on social movements, non-violent movements, and the role of religion, specifically, Catholicism, in social movements. In this conversation we hear about solidarity organizations founded by missionaries in Central America as well as in the United States, the i...

Written in 1770 by André Grétry, Silvain, is restaged in the 19th century American Southwest through Opera Lafayette’s interpretation. Written in 1770 by André Grétry, Silvain addresses land right issues between peasants and landowners back in 18th century France. Opera Lafayette’s current production sets the plot in San Luis Valley, CO and the conversation today addresses the relevance of this to...

Tina Cordova , the granddaughter of a resident of Tularosa during the first atomic bomb, is the co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, an organization that seeks to bring attention to the victims of the first nuclear blast. Music Credit: The Reckoning by AERØHEAD: https://soundcloud.com/aerohead Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https...

Bob Arellano is a Cuban-American author, musician, and educator. Arellano’s literary production includes pioneering work in electronic publishing, graphic-novel editions, and six novels.

David Rocchio is an attorney, writer, and Emmy-nominated filmmaker. Through his organization, Stowe Story Labs, David provides opportunities for people to break into film, advance their work, and break down industry barriers. Stowe Story Labs is currently partnered with the New Mexico Film Office in launching a new training program for emerging New Mexican screenwriters.

On this show we hear from five people who agreed to lend their thoughts about Taos to TCA’s microphone. Joshua Aragon, Montserrat Oyanedel Tolmo, Ryan Brown, Ava Collignon and Sonya Vitalia Silva Baca. Each one of them has a singular relationship to Taos, having ancestral roots in this land or simply passing through. In sharing their perspective with us, they create a small mosaic, reflecting some...

Since its inception in 1989, as the only independent Native women’s non-profit organization, Tewa Women United provides advocacy and prevention services to women and youth in the community. In this show, Executive Director, Dr. Corrine Sanchez speaks to healing, relation in action, releasing trauma, and how we end violence against women, girls, and Mother Earth.

Since 1957, the Santa Fe Opera has drawn people from around the world to its adobe theater that overlooks the high desert landscape in northern New Mexico. This season at the Santa Fe Opera visitors can experience Carmen , The Barber of Seville , Falstaff , Tristan und Isolde , M. Butterfly , and the apprentice scenes. We hear from Tim Hill , the Director of Marketing, about the unique apprentices...

Dr. Philip Gonzales is a doctor in sociology at the University of New Mexico. Dr Gonzales’s work explores ethnic identities and politics that were experienced by Mexican descendants after 1848. Dr. Gonzales also explores what it means to be a “cultural citizen”, and how Nuevomexicanos expressed their ethnic identity post WWI.

Roanna , or Rowie , Shebala is a Native American of the Dine (Navajo Tribe) and Shiwi (Zuni Tribe) writer, poet and performer. Shebala shares her intentionality in bringing native voices in spaces where they are not always heard. Shebala also reflects on her writing processes and the place of performance in her work.

Anakeala Trujillo is a musician. In 2021, she put together an EP of 7 songs. Isabella O’Donnell Silfverberg is also a performing artist and an active community member. She is part of True Kids One and has participated in many events, leading conversations with local political figures. In this conversation, we reflect on places available for youth to create and gather. We interrogate the role of pe...

Rupert Boyd and Laura Metcalf are partners in life and music as a dynamic guitar and cello duo. The couple arrange much of their repertoire themselves, drawing inspiration from artists across all genres. Boyd and Metcalf share their eclectic mix of musical arrangements from Debussy and Bach to Radiohead and Beyoncé in this episode recorded after a rehearsal for their recent performance in Taos.

Three artists, Sarah Parker, a printmaker and digital artist, Jack Lorang, a musician, and Jai Knight, an interdisciplinary artist, reflect on the recent creation of The Lost Sunshine Cinema Collective. They share insights on the nature of the collective and the potential for collaboration and connection through art.

Revolt Gallery’s owner and founder, Steve McFarland, shares his insights on creating a space for new artistic voices in Taos. Since 2017, Revolt Gallery has become a place where a diversity of artists present their work - a place for community that is rooted in art.

Leo Vicenti is an enrolled member of the Jicarilla Apache Nation, who identifies creatively as a human, an artist, educator and visual communication designer. In this conversation, he reflects on his knowledge and work surrounding design.

David Fernandez de Taos is a writer and a participant in the spiritual, cultural, historical, and political aspects of life in Taos and beyond. As a Native Taos New Mexican, with both Spanish and Navajo family heritage, he is interested in the advancement of the spiritual and conciliation among the cultures and peoples of the Northern Rio Grande region and beyond.

Dr. Liz Przybylski is as ethnographer and a interdisciplinary scholar of popular music, specializing in hip hop practices in Canada and the United States, with a focus on Indigenous popular music. She is an Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside. Her 2020 book, Hybrid Ethnography: Online, Offline, and In Between develops an innovative model of hybrid on-...

Dr. Lillian Gorman is a researcher, Spanish heritage language learner and teacher, and a proud Chicana and Nuevomexicana from Albuquerque. In this conversation, we speak with her about language, pride within Spanish heritage language learning, language and identity in northern New Mexican families, and the dialogue between nuevomexicanos and other Latino communities in the US.

Anita Rodriguez is a mother, a painter, a construction worker, an enjarradora, and a writer from Taos. In this conversation, cultural representation, historic trauma and community work all play a part in informing the understanding of the current Northern New Mexican culture.

Tomas van Houtryve is a Paris based artist, photographer and filmmaker whose major works interweave investigative journalism, philosophy and metaphor. One of van Houtryve’s latest works confronts America’s collective historic amnesia, bringing stories of the “Far West”, that are often untold, to the light. The conversation with Tomas van Houtryve explores the processes related to his documenting w...

Joanna Keane Lopez is a multidisciplinary artist whose work brings together large scale installation, adobe architecture and sculpture as a reimagining of landscape and place. By working with materials of adobe, alíz, paper and natural dyes her practice acts to address conceptions of sculpture in engagement with land.