Parts 1, 2, and 3: Axis Mundi
December 7, 2020
In Santa Fe, as in many cities, the most public versions of history are made visible in monuments that reinforce conquest and colonization. Those, it seems, are the only stories worth knowing and celebrating. But whose voices are being left out? And what stories are being erased?
Featuring writer Dr. Alicia Inez Guzmán, and SFAI Story Maps Fellows Diego Medina and Christian Gering, this 9-part podcast unsettles what we think we know about Santa Fe and New Mexico’s past to help envision a more just future.
In parts 1,2, and 3 of Unsettled Series, Axis Mundi, Santa Fe reckons with one monument and the moments leading to its downfall, with Heidi Brandow, Alma Castro, Darryl Wellington and Virgil Vigil.
Grounded in archival research, oral history, and creative storytelling, Unsettled narrates relations across time, weaving in the identity crises of present-day Santa Fe and the controversy around the Soldiers’ Monument with a chronicle of events that begins before European contact and continues into Spain’s earliest occupation of Santa Fe in the 17th century. Looking outward, Unsettled also reveals that this region’s struggles are related to those taking place nationally and internationally by drawing on SFAI artists whose work addresses histories of colonization and their impact on the present. Reckoning with conflict and beauty near and far helps us imagine a future in which all our relations can tell rich stories of self and place.
