New Mexico has literally been ground zero for the nuclear industry since the first atomic blast took place here in 1945. A new exhibition at the National Hispanic Cultural Center addresses the effects of this legacy in a show called “Nuclear Past, Present, & Future: Art in Action.”
The show is a collaboration with the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium and explores the human and environmental toll of nuclear testing, uranium mining, and the growth of other nuclear operations in New Mexico.
The downwinders lived near the site of the Trinity Test, which took place on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo. They were neither warned nor evacuated and their descendants fought for years to receive compensation under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act that went to victims of other subsequent nuclear testing. Finally in 2025, RECA was expanded in the budget bill signed by President Trump.
The idea for the exhibition began with a similar, but smaller show at the Branigan Cultural Center in Las Cruces called “Trinity: Legacies of Nuclear Testing-A People’s Perspective," according to NHCC Visual Art Program Manager Jadira Gurule.
“But from there, it really kind of grew into a larger project,” Gurule said.
“We were realizing, you know, more and more artists are really creating work around the subject matter, and that it could expand,” she said. “So then we kind of shifted the space in the museum where it was going to be housed into the largest space that we have, and really then worked to kind of flesh out the project from there.”
The multimedia exhibition features about 60 artworks from 32 artists from New Mexico and beyond, including photographs, drawings, paintings, and sculptures. With New Mexico downwinders only recently qualifying for compensation from the federal government, and proposals for new uranium mining on public lands, the topics addressed by the exhibition remain as vital and valid as ever.
“The artwork here that's being presented is really intended to kind of help visitors process the human impact, the emotional quality of that, and then think a little bit about the future we want to cultivate,” Gurule said.
The exhibition will be on display through January 24, 2027.
