There Must Be Other Names for the River - UNM Art Museum Virtual. 2021.

There Must Be Other Names For The River is a composition for singers who embody river flow data at six points along what we call the Rio Grande. The exhibition features a web-based sound installation and virtual community space titled “Tributaries,” where viewers can contribute their voice to the project. The piece engages our relationship with this source of life in this region, and in a time of physical distancing, acknowledges that the river is also a way we are connected with neighbors and ecosystems, seen and unseen. 

In 2020, through stretches of Albuquerque and elsewhere, the river was shallow and skinny, if not disappearing altogether for miles and miles. Hydrologists say it could be dry this year from north of Bernalillo through Albuquerque. These miles of empty riverbed are new and alarming. Water agencies in New Mexico are warning farmers not to plant crops in 2021, since there may not be water to maintain them. 

Human-caused climate change over the last few decades—the blink of an eye in the river’s ancient timeline—is one culprit. Another is human interference with its flows, the damming and trading and control of water, a resource that’s become more valuable than gold.