SITE Santa Fe is pleased to present a new program, Creative Residencies (CRs), celebrating creative people doing extraordinary work in our community. CR participants present unexpected creative experiences at SITE Santa Fe.

Many thanks to the Gale Family Foundation and the Anne Embree Charitable Foundation for their support of this program.

Monique Carr: November 4, 2021 - January 9, 2021

Monique Carr presents a newly created video, Harvest // An intimate observation and connection for what may grow and ground me // fruits as a compass, produced in collaboration with SITE Santa Fe.

Carr will also share her work through two public programs: Creative Residencies Opening and A Multi-Sensory Experience by Monique Carr.

About Monique Carr:

Monique Carr is an observer, forager, and maker of shrubs- fermented syrups and wine in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her process involves being asked to pick fruits from properties where the fruit will otherwise go to waste and in doing so celebrating the richness of our harvest seasonally. With these fruits she makes cold-processed botanical syrups for soft drinks and cocktails. Her intention with this process is of storytelling, of capturing how symbiosis between flora and human, via fermentation, is synchronous to facilitating closeness between loved ones and community, elicited through memory, taste, and smell.

Her achievements as a maker include teaching a workshop for the New Mexico Fermentation festival “Mini Series” via Edible Magazine Santa Fe. She is an honorary of The Wheelright Museum’s “Better Wednesday” salon series. Monique has contributed an essay to the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies publication: Small Acts of Resilience for Living Within the Earth’s Carrying Capacity.

Her observations and process have been featured in the following publications:

• Spellbound Syrups Captivates the Senses – Edible New Mexico
• Craftspeople to Know in New Mexico | Southwest Contemporary
• “Sweet and Sour” by Maria Manuela for New Mexico Magazine

@spellbound_syrups

Johnny Ortiz: October 1, 2021 - October 24, 2021

SITE Santa Fe’s second iteration of Creative Residencies features the work of Johnny Ortiz, who was born and raised in Taos, New Mexico, and spent his formative years as a youth in Taos Pueblo. After dropping out of college, Ortiz traveled the U.S. and worked in some of the nation’s premier kitchens—Chicago’s Alinea; The Willows Inn on Lummi Island, Washington; and San Francisco’s Saison—before returning home to Taos. In 2015, Ortiz started /Shed, an ongoing meditation on the terrain of Northern New Mexico and a celebration of its culture and ecology through dining experiences that are the fruiting body of a larger ecosystem of practices. Ortiz was named one of Eater magazine’s “Young Guns” (for top chefs under 30) in 2014 and was recently nominated for a James Beard award, “Rising Star Chef of the Year,” in 2020.

This installation at SITE Santa Fe is a perspective into his practice with clay.

About Johnny Ortiz:

Johnny Ortiz is a genizaro, of native american and mother spain descent, born and raised in the small town of Taos, New Mexico, where he spent his youth primarily on the Taos Pueblo. It was here he first found his love for wild food, which is still an integral part of life of the culture. He remembers learning to eat the wild rose from his grandfather and how formative that single experience was.

In 2015, he started his own project, / Shed. The beginning of / Shed started with the thought of making an experience around food that was fully authentic, where every detail had meaning and where he could have interaction with every step of the process himself. More than a restaurant, / Shed is an ethos, an ongoing meditation on where he lives and is from in Northern New Mexico, a celebration of its nature and the fleeting of time. A dining series shaped by his familial Indigenous roots and the landscape around him. The exquisite land-inspired menu is paired with ceramic work by himself, that is dug of wild micaceous clay that has been used by his ancestors for generations.

In fall 2010, he dropped out after his first semester of business school and moved to Chicago to learn solely by trade. Having worked with food for five years already, he took a position at the restaurant Alinea, at the time being the youngest on the team. Sixteen months of intensive learning later, Johnny was eager to continue learning how to cook, going next to Lummi Island, Washington to work at the Willows Inn where he learned more about his love for wild and location specific food. After a season there Johnny moved to San Francisco, California to work with Josh Skenes at Saison. Johnny was on the opening team and started on the hearth/meat station, the heart of the restaurant. At the end of his first year, Johnny got promoted to Sous Chef, working second to Josh Skenes for the following three years during which he learned to cook with more intention, how to run a team, select the best produce, and overall how the inner workings of a restaurant worked. In Johnny’s mind there was never a question of returning home, but rather when that was going to happen.

Megan Goldberg: August 12, 2021 - September 12, 2021

For Megan Goldberg‘s Creative Residency, she explores the creativity inherent in American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation in three projects: The Sound of Things, Does My Voice Matter?, and The Look of Things, each represented by a video on display in the galleries.

The Sound of Things

ASL interpreters sometimes need to describe sounds that do not have corresponding signs using a creative combination of handshapes, movements, and facial expressions. Investigating sound interpretation, Goldberg assembled a group of ASL interpreters to creatively interpret a variety of sounds curated by musician Alex Simon. Originally presented initially at the Motorama Drive In, RGC Access interpreters Lin Marksbury, Adam Romero, Santana Chavez, Cynthia Jiron, Megan Goldberg, and Tristan Lenzo interpret Simon’s unique soundtrack in a video produced by Andrew Primm.

Does My Voice Matter?

Deaf people work with interpreters who voice for them in many important life situations, like interviewing for a job, communicating with doctors, appearing in court, etc. However, voiced interpretations can vary depending on the interpreter. In this project, Goldberg engages her friend and colleague, Cassandra Perez, a Deaf community member, to sign a story about her experience of gentrification in Santa Fe. Then, ASL interpreters Cynthia Jiron, Tristan Lenzo, Adam Romero, Jackie Caballero, and Megan Goldberg voice her story, showing how ASL interpretation is influenced by the perspective of the interpreter.

The Look of Things

American Sign Language is a visual language that has many parallels to art, including the use of space and form (handshapes called Classifiers) to describe things. In this project, Goldberg creates GIFs for ASL Interpretation, combining the visual language of art with the visual language of ASL. Video produced by Andrew Primm.

About Megan Goldberg:

Megan Goldberg is a nationally certified sign language interpreter living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Inspired in part by a second-grade lesson on the American Sign Language (ASL) alphabet, Goldberg went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics with a concentration in Sign Language Studies from the University of New Mexico, and has been interpreting in the community for almost 15 years.

Goldberg works in a variety of settings including educational, entertainment, medical, and legal interpretation. She coordinates interpreters for RGC Access, New Mexico’s only interpreting referral agency, and a variety of other contracts around the state. She cares deeply about language access and Deaf rights, and is always looking to spread awareness about systemic issues that exist today.