Anna Tsouhlarakis

In 1979, the largest radioactive spill in United States history took place on Navajo Nation land in Church Rock, New Mexico. Decades later, the 1,100 tons of uranium waste and 94 million gallons of radioactive water that seeped into the Puerco River is now dust—poison particles that are spread by the wind and continue to ravage the Navajo community, where cancer rates have doubled from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Tsouhlarakis combines images of the body and land in Breath of Wind to poetically illustrate the interdependence of the two. Throughout the video, sounds of the wind are woven through a recording of her grandmother, who tells stories in Navajo about “the Big Wind” and all that is swept up and carried in its stream. (3:16 mins., digital video)

Also on view beginning February 11 is Tsouhlarakis’s new, Wex-commissioned exhibition, The Native Guide Project: Columbus. Reframing the discourse around Native American identity, this project engaging the center's exterior and interior spaces focuses on the forced migration of Indigenous peoples, including in Central Ohio.

IMAGE CAPTION
Breath of Wind, courtesy of the artist.