RadioACTive 03.16.22

Celebrating 150 years of Yellowstone with Megan Kate Nelson, author of Saving Yellowstone, Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America. Plus, artist David Rios Ferreira on his new UMFA exhibit, Transcending Time and Space.

Tonight's show featured the following people, organizations and/or events. Check them out and get plugged into your community!

Community Co-Host Nick Burns spoke with Megan Kate Nelson, author of Saving Yellowstone, Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America. Yellowstone National Park turned 150 years old on March 1. 

• About the book: From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the propulsive and vividly told story of how Yellowstone became the world’s first national park after the nationwide turmoil of the Civil War. Each year nearly four million people visit Yellowstone National Park—one of the most popular of all national parks—but few know the fascinating and complex historical context in which it was established. In late July 1871, the geologist-explorer Ferdinand Hayden led a team of scientists through a narrow canyon into Yellowstone Basin, entering one of the last unmapped places in the country. The survey’s discoveries led to the passage of the Yellowstone Act in 1872, which created the first national park in the world.
  
  Now, author Megan Kate Nelson examines the larger context of this American moment, illuminating Hayden’s survey as a national project meant to give Americans a sense of achievement and unity in the wake of a destructive civil war. Saving Yellowstone follows Hayden and two other protagonists in pursuit of their own agendas: Sitting Bull, a Lakota leader who asserted his peoples’ claim to their homelands, and financier Jay Cooke, who wanted to secure his national reputation by building the Northern Pacific Railroad through the Great Northwest. Hayden, Cooke, and Sitting Bull staked their claims to Yellowstone at a critical moment in Reconstruction, when the Grant Administration and the 42nd Congress were testing the reach and the purpose of federal power across the nation.
  
  A narrative of adventure and exploration, Saving Yellowstone is also a story of Indigenous resistance, the expansive reach of railroad, photographic, and publishing technologies, and the struggles of Black southerners to bring racial terrorists to justice. It reveals how the early 1870s were a turning point in the nation’s history, as white Americans ultimately abandoned the higher ideal of equality for all people, creating a much more fragile and divided United States.

How might art reconnect you with those you miss? A new exhibition by David Rios Ferreia at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) at the University of Utah looks at community art-making, imagined time travel and spirituality as a vehicle for thinking about love, loss and memory.

• David Rios Ferreira is a visual artist, independent curator and museum professional. Ferreira is interested in how the past informs the present and their existence on the same plane. Issues around power, colonial history, deculturalization practices and missing or murdered Indigenous and LGBTQ people are at the root of his work. Borrowing images from historical etchings, old political cartoons, coloring books and films, Ferreira reprocesses this imagery through layering, tracing and collage, to create new forms, new bodies and new futures. 

• From UMFA: Merging science fiction with cultural and spiritual traditions, Transcending Time and Space asks visitors to contemplate those they might’ve lost, those they miss across distances and those they have yet to meet. The exhibition presents a collection of Ferreira’s abstracted drawings, collages and photographs that function as imagined gateways and portals through which we may connect with those we cannot reach on this plane. These gateways use imagery from history, pop culture, photographs and text to tell stories about the people we miss. 

• Ferreira was moved to create the work in this exhibition around the ever-growing tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous people—something he explores in collaboration with Utah-based artist Denae Shanidiin and Restoring Ancestral Winds, a Tribal coalition responding to the violence perpetrated on Indigenous communities within the Great Basin and strengthening the traditional values of Indigenous relations. 

• March 18: David Rios Ferreira Artist Talk and conversation with Denae Shanidiin, a hybrid event from 6:00-7:30 p.m. in Ezekiel R. Dumke Jr. Auditorium and online via livestream. Event by Utah Museum of Fine Arts: "Join David Rios Ferreira as he discusses his work and the ACME Lab exhibition Transcending Time and Space at UMFA. Merging science fiction with cultural and spiritual traditions, Transcending Time and Space is an exhibition of work by David Rios Ferreira with additional works in collaboration with local Diné and Korean artist, Denae Shanidiin. Throughout the exhibition, the artist presents a collection of abstracted drawings, collages, photographs, and video representative of gateways and portals. Ferreira was moved to create this work based on the ever-growing tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous people—something he explores in collaboration with Denae Shanidiin and Restoring Ancestral Winds, a Tribal coalition responding to the violence perpetrated on Indigenous communities within the Great Basin and strengthening the traditional values of Indigenous relations. Following Ferreira’s presentation, the artist will be joined by Denae Shanidiin to talk about their process, collaboration, and how the project evolved through their dialogue. Local artist, curator, and educator, Jorge Rojas, will moderate the conversation and a Q&A."

• March 19: David Rios Ferreira: Transcending Time and Space, featuring work and writing by artist Denae Shanidiin, is the newest project in the Museum’s award-winning, exploratory ACME Lab space. The exhibition opens to the public Saturday, March 19, with free admission and art making. A free artist talk and preview will be held on the evening of Friday, March 18, at the UMFA and via livestream. See below for details about all exhibition-related events. The exhibition will be on view through Sunday, December 4.

• March 19: Third Saturday for Families: Collage Gateways, 1:00-4:00 p.m. at Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 410 S. Campus Center Dr., SLC. "Imagine creating a work of art that allows you to travel across time and space to reach a person you miss. David Rios Ferreira’s exhibition Transcending Time and Space features collages he created with this idea in mind. Using images from popular culture, history, and science fiction, just like Ferreira, you can create your own collage portal that imagines reaching out to people who are distant. Advance registration for this FREE event is required." To sign up, click here. 

Views, thoughts or opinions shared by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the board, staff or members of Listeners' Community Radio of Utah, KRCL 90.9fm. Tonight's show was produced and hosted by Lara Jones and Community Co-Host Nick Burns.

 

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