CENTERLINE: a project for THE LAND/an art site
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THE LAND/an art site is an art organization founded in 1996 by Tom and Edite Cates as an opportunity for artists to explore our human relationship with the natural landscape using whatever means necessary and taking whatever forms that inspire. Projects have ranged from dance performances to ceremonial structures to quasi-archaeological digs, and much more. The actual site, Lot 16, is a 40-acre undeveloped square-shape tract within the Loma Parda Subdivision, 60 miles southeast of Albuquerque, a few miles west of the town of Mountainair, owned and maintained by THE LAND. It sits on the western edge of the Southwestern Tablelands, and has an unobstructed view of the Manzano Mountains to the west. Lot 16’s western half is a high plateau that slopes down precipitously to a flat plain. The plain extends to the eastern border, and is bisected by a north-south-running – usually dry – rocky arroyo. Much of Lot 16 is covered in grama grass, with juniper and piñon trees scattered throughout. The lot’s only structure is a large, open shed near the center. There is no electrical power and cell phone reception is intermittent at best. THE LAND/gallery is located in downtown Albuquerque. Both locations are open to visitors.
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“When is “THE LAND” not land?” Centerline is an investigation into the implications of the site being always already constituted in an ideological system that considers all non-human existence external to itself, and therefore subject to its ownership and control. To that end, the actual biophysical terrain has been overlaid by legal, political, economic, scientific, technological and historical features, transforming it, in a sense, through measuring, quantifying, codifying, categorizing, classifying and assessing, into an extension of human interests, fears and desires. The Centerline project seeks to reveal this process at work. The artist has been invited by THE LAND to conduct this investigation over an open-ended period of time.
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Centerline is planned for 3 main Phases -
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Phase 1: Initial gathering of data and production of information graphics for display at THE LAND/gallery (research began August, 2015; TRANSFORM exhibit opened October 9, 2015);
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Phase 2: Exhaustive inventory/archive of all available information and production of supporting information graphics, in conjunction with other representational forms, also for display, perhaps at the site itself, perhaps online or at other venues (target completion date – summer, 2016);
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Phase 3: Performance of a land survey based on collected data, resulting in a staked line bisecting the property diagonally from the southeast corner to the northwest corner. This phase may ally itself with a landowners’ interest group to resist the construction of a CO2 pipeline along an existing utility easement that crosses THE LAND at the southeast corner (target completion date – ongoing).
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The following are sources of graphical representations and verbal data accumulated to date: AAA road & relief maps * Google Earth photos / maps * Real estate listings * Torrance County GIS imagery / data / P & Z board minutes * State Land Office data * Subdivision plats & photos * Titles, Deeds, Covenants, Restrictions * Zoning, Easements, Surface-Mineral Rights * State / Federal Elections District maps * USGS quadrangle maps * BLM Ecoregion studies / reports / charts * EPA Western Ecology Division database * Hydrogeological reports / illustrations * Regional / Local Histories
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