Healing a Church is a live sonic experience responding to the history of San Miguel Chapel, the oldest church in the United States that was once the site of a Kiva and Pueblo ceremonies, to address the healing of colonial traumas.

Performed by In Defense Of Memory, Healing a Church uses sound to heal the space and illuminate the lingering impacts of colonization and conquest recently evidenced by the conflicts and violence surrounding Oñate Monuments and the Santa Fe Plaza obelisk.

The event will include a musical performance followed by a short panel with the performers.

About In Defense of Memory

In Defense of Memory (IDOM) is an inter-culturally-situated ecology of everyday relations-warriors plucking, striking, bowing, and flowing self-defense in Creative Music vibrational continuum. IDOM began in New Mexico as a performance-constellation in a confluence of principled, cultural activities set in an ecology of Indigenist trajectories of solidarity, historic resistance technologies, and highly resonant sonic vibrations set in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

In Defense of Memory Members

Laura Ortman (NYC), violin and electronics
A member of the White Mountain Apache tribe, Laura Ortman is a musician and composer whose work includes albums, live performance, field recordings, and video. As a soloist, Ortman performs on amplified and Apache violin, vocals, piano, electric guitar, and keyboard. Ortman founded the all-indigenous orchestral ensemble, Coast Orchestra in 2008, and has also collaborated with Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Okkyung Lee, and Jeffrey Gibson. She has performed and presented work at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2021); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2019); the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival, Toronto, Canada (2017, 2011); Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Canada (2017); and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2009). Ortman is the recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship (2022); a Jerome Foundation, Jerome at Camargo Residency (2020); the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, National Artist Fellowship (2016); and a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (2014).

Carlos Santistevan (Santa Fe), bass and electronics
Carlos Santistevan is a musician, sounds engineer, organizer, and director of the High Mayhem Emerging Arts collective based in Santa Fe, NM. He has performed at The Stone, High Zero Festival, Ende Tymes Festival, The Outpost Performance Space, Hemlock Tavern, SITE SANTA FE, the Empty Bottle, Outsound Creative Music Festival, The Olympia Experimental Music Festival, High Mayhem Festival and more performing with such artists as: J.A. Dino Deane, Raven Chacon, Laura Ortman, Thollem McDonas, Tania Caroline Chen, Marshall Trammell, Chris Jonas, Tatsuya Nakatani and more. Carlos is a seasoned improviser and a member of diverse ensembles such as In Defense of Memory, iNK oN pAPER, The Uninvited Guest(s), The Late Severa Wires, Out of Context, Black Iron Trio, Taiji Pole and more.

Marshall Trammell/Music Research Strategies (homeless), percussion

Marshall Trammell is an experimental archivist, percussionist, conductor, and composer. His work centers social change interventions and utilizes political aesthetic theory, data creation, mapping, and collective music-and-artmaking to relocate the act of co-production within community. Trammell received Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants in 2015 and 2019 for projects spanning the globe, and has collaborated with artists such as Sharmi Basu, John Brennan, Raven Chacon, India Cooke, John Dietrich, Chris Cogburn, Marisa DeMarco, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Lisa E. Harris, Antoine Hunter, Eileen Kage, John Jang, Dohee Lee, Genny Lim, Robert McGill, Hafez Modirzadeh, Mogauwane Mahloele, Jamal Moore, David Murray, Pauline Oliveros, Laura Ortman, Akira Sakata, Carlos Santistevan, Jawwaad Taylor, Aaron Turner (SIGE), Saul Williams, Hong-Kai Wang, and Francis Wong. He has been an artist in residence at Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri; Coppermas, Sechelt, Canada; EastSide Cultural Center, Oakland; The Museum of Human Achievement, Austin; Off Lomas, Albuquerque; Prelinger Library, San Francisco; Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Rauschenberg Residency; Southern Exposure, San Francisco; and Western Front, Vancouver. He was an Intercultural Leadership Fellow (2018-19). He is affiliated with EastSide Arts Alliance and ProArts COMMONS, and is a member of Solidarity Research Center.