As part of the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange (CIPX), Diné artist Will Wilson invites participants with lived, inherited, or visionary relationships to nuclear culture—uranium mining, atomic testing, environmental cleanup, and speculative futures—for a portrait session using the historic wet plate collodion process.
Created on-site at SITE SANTA FE, these tintype portraits become a living archive of those who have been affected by, have resisted, or continue to dream through the legacy of nuclear colonialism. Wilson’s process foregrounds Indigenous visual sovereignty and ecological witnessing, positioning photography as a relational act and a tool for historical redress.
Long Table Public Participatory Discussions*
*Only on Saturday and Sunday at 2 PM
Attendees are further invited to participate in The Long Table, a horizontal format for honest, open discussion based on current nuclear affairs. The Long Table is a non-hierarchical, democratic forum for public discussion. Initially devised as a creative response to conventional hierarchies of ‘expert panels’ followed by ‘audience questions’, event attendees are instead invited to both observe and contribute to the conversation. Anyone is welcome to take a seat at the table and offer their perspective.
Conversationalists at this Long Table include artist Will Wilson, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE), Back from the Brink (BftB), and artist Shayla Blatchford of Anti-Uranium Mapping Project.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico
Through comprehensive research, public education and effective citizen action, Nuclear Watch New Mexico seeks to promote safety and environmental protection at regional nuclear facilities; mission diversification away from nuclear weapons programs; greater accountability and cleanup in the nation-wide nuclear weapons complex; and consistent U.S. leadership toward a world free of nuclear weapons.
Jay Coghlan is Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a nonprofit organization that watchdogs the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Department of Energy’s nation-wide nuclear weapons complex. He has worked successfully against radioactive incineration at LANL and through lawsuits against the Department of Energy. He prompted a 2006 independent study that concluded that plutonium pits (the fissile “triggers” of nuclear weapons) last at least a century, leading to congressional rejections of new design nuclear weapons and their production. He is now centrally engaged in fighting against the U.S. government’s most recent and serious attempt to expand plutonium pit production. He has also served as a consultant on nuclear disarmament issues to the Santa Fe Archdiocese for the last six years.
Sophie Stroud, Communications and Associate Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, is a rising young activist in antinuclear weapons. Her role at Nuclear Watch New Mexico includes responsibilities in programmatic direction and implementation, both in person and digitally. She has now been working with the organization for over seven years.
The Anti-Uranium Mapping Project
Shayla Blatchford (Diné) is a documentary photographer and interdisciplinary artist whose practice examines the environmental and social legacies of uranium extraction in the American Southwest. Through The Anti-Uranium Mapping Project, she integrates documentary photography, oral history, and decolonial cartography to visualize the intersections of contamination, policy, and lived experience. Her work situates community narratives within broader environmental and historical frameworks, emphasizing the continuity between past exploitation and present resistance. By merging data and storytelling, Blatchford constructs a visual methodology that challenges extractive representation while advancing collective understanding of land-based trauma and resilience. Designed as a long-term resource, the project serves impacted communities as both evidence and education—tools to challenge industry, build transparency, and reduce future harm.
Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE)
MASE is rooted in the experiences of uranium-impacted communities of the Southwestern U.S. It works with communities to restore and protect the natural and cultural environment through respectfully promoting intercultural engagement among communities and institutions for the benefit of all life and future generations. MASE promotes the clean-up of uranium contaminated sites and works to prevent new mines from damaging the land. They do this through a variety of tactics including: education, public events, working with regulators, policy making, and litigation.
Back from the Brink (BftB)
Back from the Brink (BftB) is a U.S.-based grassroots coalition of individuals, organizations, and elected officials working together to build a diverse and politically powerful nuclear disarmament constituency in order to drive bold policy changes. Their organizing approach is intersectional, connecting their advocacy for nuclear abolition with related economic, social, racial, and climate justice issues.
Back from the Brink uniquely approaches local, community-based organizing through a network of “hubs”, which are founded and organized by local BftB activists and offer opportunities for sustained local BftB advocacy activities. New Mexico Hub is one of twenty-six hubs across the country.
