Exhibition Runs: September 27 – November 4, 2021

Harwood Art Center is pleased to announce our annual capstone program Bridge: Art & Social Justice featuring an exhibition by our very first artist in residence, Martín Wannam. He has been in his residency and in a Harwood studio since May 2021, working towards this exhibition. His exhibition La Furia en contra de la Máquina features collaborative and individual works by himself and artist Marlene Tafoya.

Public Open Hours

This exhibition is installed in our galleries and accessible to the public on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10am-2pm. All visitors must wear a face mask.

Reception & Artist Talks 

We invite you to join us for an artist talk at Harwood on Saturday, October 16 at 5:30pm. An Exhibition Reception and other activities will follow from 6 – 8pm. The event will take place outside. Masks and vaccinations are required with limited capacity in the galleries. We will be checking vaccination cards at the entrance point on Granite Ave. This event is free and open to the public.

La Furia en contra de la Máquina

La Furia en contra de la Máquina or in English The Fury against the Machine is an exhibition featuring two visual artists in conversation. Marlene Tafoya and Martín Wannam present visual ideas through dynamic exploration of mediums utilized to individuality and collaboratively explore decolonizing gestures toward systematic structures. Their work proposes the reimagining, molding and subversion of objects as means of survival. With the use of the body and religious/cultural objects, they reevaluate the formal interpretation of icons, economic currency, images, nail materials, and monuments to challenge others to explore their own unperceived colonial biases.

About Marlene

Marlene Tafoya is an Indigenous artist, performer and manicurist from the Los Angeles, Harbor Area. Marlene is currently pursuing her Masters in Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art from California State University, Long Beach in 2015. Her work explores various concepts ranging from personal, social, and environmental. Tafoya co- curated Language: Art for Leonard Peltier, a union among artists and The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. She has performed at Arts Lab, Albuquerque, NM (2020) Angels Gate Cultural Center, Los Angeles, Ca (2019) Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, CA (2018) New Wight Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA (2016) and presented a solo exhibition at Dennis W. Dutzi Gallery, California State University, Long Beach, CA (2015).

www.marlenetafoya.com

About Martín

Martín Wannam is a Guatemalan artist and educator whose work looks critical at the historical, social and political climate of central America, specifically examining its impact on the queer individual. He focuses on the intersection of brownness and queer utopia that uses the foundation of iconoclasm throughout the tools of photography, sculpture, and performance for the constant evaluation of systematic structures. He received his MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico in Spring 2020, a Diploma in Contemporary photography from La Fototeca (GT) in 2016, and their BA in Graphic Design from the Universidad Rafael Landivar (GT) in 2015. He is part of the fronteristxs collective and teaching as an Adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico.

www.martinwannam.com

About Harwood’s Residency for Art & Social Justice

Each fall for twelve years, Harwood’s galleries are devoted to artists working at the intersections of creative expression and social justice. In 2021, for the occasion of Harwood’s 30th Anniversary, we expanded this offering and formally established our first official annual residency program.

In January 2021 we invited New Mexico-based artists whose practice is socially/politically engaged to submit project proposals for our inaugural Residency for Art & Social Justice. Our 2021 Artist in Residence, Martín Wannam, received a private artist studio at Harwood Art Center to work in for the duration of their 7 month residency, a six week exhibition in both of our gallery spaces, project, promotional and professional support from our staff, a $1000 artist honorarium to support their time and creative work and a $500 materials stipend to support their project costs.

We are grateful to New Mexico Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, City of Albuquerque, Urban Enhancement Trust Fund and McCune Charitable Foundation for their resourcing of this program.

Exhibition Catalog