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Joanna Keane Lopez

@jokeanelopez

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Energetic Materials, 2026
Adobe, UV-cured acrylic pigment prints, and two-channel video projection, 12:24 minutes

See Unearthing Futures exhibition @harwoodmuseum up till February 28, 2027.

Energetic Materials examines how land-based practices and militarized spatial regimes coexist at White Sands Missile Range in south-central New Mexico.

My Montoya-Apodaca family has ranched in and around the northern Tularosa Basin since 1846. Beginning in the 1940s, the U.S. government appropriated much of this land through eminent domain to create what would become White Sands Missile Range. This rupture anchors the installation’s central inquiry: how can land simultaneously be a place of dwelling, ranching, environmental memory, military surveillance, and ballistic experimentation?

Drawing upon visits to family ranches within and adjacent to the range, multigenerational oral histories, and archival research, the project traces a landscape governed by overlapping histories and jurisdictions. Ranchers know this land through touch, weather, labor, and intergenerational craft. The military engages the same terrain through aerial mapping, surveillance grids, detonation coordinates, and weapons testing—transforming lived land into state-managed territory.

Adobe is central to this divide. Adobe and stone historically defined ranch architecture throughout the basin. After the range was established, the military repurposed existing adobe ranch buildings for weapons assembly, ballistic testing, structural-impact studies, and military training. The same soil that sustained homes and ranches now serves as a substrate for missiles and open-air detonations, with lasting consequences for downwind communities.

The Oral History Project of Early Ranch Life on White Sands Missile Range, collected in 1993 by Human Systems Research and now stewarded by NMSU Library Archives and Special Collections, was foundational to this work. Its records preserve firsthand accounts from ranching families displaced by the creation of the range.

Energetic Materials considers where ancestral land use, ranching, the nuclear age, environmental trauma, and contemporary military occupation converge. taken in The Harwood Museum of Art by @jokeanelopez

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3 months ago

Join us this Saturday for an intimate performance from exhibiting artists Joanna Keane Lopez & Santino Gonzales. We are absolutely honored to have these artists perform at the Arthur Bell Auditorium at Harwood Museum. Buy your tickets on our website now or at the door (if we don't sell out!).

"Noche Blanca" is an ongoing music project of Joanna Keane Lopez and collaboration with W.R. Cook. The songs are intuitive melodies and incantations drawn from the night, the moon, the stars, murder ballads, drunkenness, loss and love.

"Immaculate Constellation," is a live performance by Santino Gonzales where music, memory, and time blur. Through layers of ambient guitar, field recordings, messages from loved ones, and illuminated by archival home video, Tino invites listeners to tune-in closely.

Saturday October 3, 2026
6:30 pm

Artists/Students/Tribal Members $15
Harwood Members $20
General Admission $25

Tickets available on our website or at the door.

Images courtesy of Joanna Keane Lopez @jokeanelopez and Santino Gonzales
@tino_ufo

This performance is made possible with generous support by the Richard B. Siegel Foundation. taken in The Harwood Museum of Art by @jokeanelopez

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18 days ago

Here’s to being 35 today ❤️‍🔥 ~12,784 days~ so grateful to turn another year older in this precious rare existence.

Thank you to all my kind friends, family, and community who walk this wild ride with me.

photo @nizhonniyaaustin on my late mothers film camera in my sweet home I share with my love @_verdigris__ taken in Nuevo México by @jokeanelopez

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22 days ago

Join us for this unique live performance featuring sets from two exhibiting artists from "Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros", Joanna Keane Lopez + Santino Gonzales.

"Noche Blanca", an ongoing music project of Joanna Keane Lopez and collaboration with W.R. Cook followed by "Immaculate Constellation", a live performance by Santino Gonzales where music, memory, and time blur.

Saturday October 3, 2026
6:30pm

Artists/Students/Tribal Members $15
Harwood Members $20
General Admission $25

Tickets available on our website or at the door.

This performance is made possible with generous support by the Richard B. Siegel Foundation. taken in The Harwood Museum of Art by @jokeanelopez

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24 days ago

In collaboration with the National Hispanic Cultural Center, I am organizing a screening of The River That Harms (1987), a documentary by my late mother, filmmaker and journalist Colleen Ann Keane.

Sunday, October 4 at 1:30pm
@nhccnm | Albuquerque, New Mexico

Opening music performance by Paul Pino of @trinity_downwinders

The River That Harms documents the largest radioactive wastewater spill in United States history, a national tragedy that received little public attention.

In 1979, a United Nuclear Corporation tailings dam at Church Rock, New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation, collapsed, releasing 94 million gallons of radioactive wastewater and uranium mill waste into the Rio Puerco. The contaminated water flowed through Diné communities, where the river served as a vital source of water.

Through interviews and firsthand testimony, The River That Harms documents the devastating environmental and human consequences of uranium extraction on Navajo land and preserves the voices and experiences of those directly impacted by the Church Rock uranium spill.

More than four decades later, the film remains an urgent warning about the ongoing consequences of nuclear extraction and environmental contamination.

My mom’s film is the first known documentary devoted specifically to telling the story of the Church Rock Uranium Mill Spill and its impact on Diné communities. It means so much to me to bring her film back to the public, and I would be so happy to have friends, family, and community there.

The screening is free and open to the public. RSVP through the link in my bio. taken in National Hispanic Cultural Center by @jokeanelopez

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a month ago

Opening tomorrow @momaps1 ! Thank you @_pedro_reyes_ for the inclusion is this ongoing artist led anti-nuclear campaign ☮️ @artistsagainstthebomb

“Artists Against the Bomb” is a series of posters that advocates for universal nuclear disarmament. It comprises more than 250 historical and newly commissioned works that constitute a cultural history of disarmament movements, featuring works by artists, musicians, writers, and activists. AATB is organized by Estudio Pedro Reyes in collaboration with ICAN @nuclearban , the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for developing the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The exhibition includes over 80 calls to action papered across the walls, suspended from the ceiling, and displayed in vitrines for closer inspection. Featuring posters, sculptures, photographs, literature, music, and ephemera, the exhibition is rooted in AATB's belief that meaningful change arises through collective action and public refusal. taken in Queens, New York by @jokeanelopez

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a month ago

Thank you @pbs for inviting me to talk about my work. Here is a segment of my conversation with Faith Perez on my installation Energetic Materials @harwoodmuseum for the Unearthing Futures exhibition open until Feb 28, 2027 🤍

Watch the the entire episode on http://pbs.org or the link in my bio 🦋 by @jokeanelopez

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2 months ago

(Full) Our Adobe Architecture & Mud Plastering workshop for October 17 & 18 is now available for registration via the link in my bio 🤍

A weekend workshop on adobe architectural construction, adobe arches, windows, mud plastering and alíz (a clay slip paint) processes.
    •    Instructors: Joanna Keane Lopez & Helen Levine (Co-owner of NM Earth Industries, adobe manufacturers since 1972)
    •    Date: Saturday and Sunday, October 17 & 18, 2026
    •    Time: 11:30am-5:30pm

    •    Day 1:  Saturday will begin with a tour of New Mexico Earth Adobes, a large scale adobe manufacturing yard, founded in 1971. We will then focus on soil analysis and composition, mixing adobe in wheelbarrows, laying adobe bricks, introduction to tools and foundations, and adobe wall construction with emphasis on corners, mortar, plumb and leveling techniques.

    •    Day 2:  Sunday morning will begin with a lecture and conversation in the patio. We will cover history, politics, codes and cultural contexts of adobe architecture in New Mexico and beyond. A library of books on adobe will be available for students. The rest of the day will be focused on adobe mud plastering “enjarre” and an intro to alíz (a clay slip paint) and constructing adobe arches and windows.

    •    + Optional tours of local earthen sites recommended through the workshop.

    •    Where: The workshop takes place at New Mexico Earth Adobes: an adobe brick manufacturing yard in the North Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Delicious snacks and refreshments will be provided both days to students.

Limit of 14 participants.

Photos by @indigenouslens and George Richardson taken in Albuquerque, New Mexico by @jokeanelopez

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2 months ago

The Unearthing Futures exhibition @harwoodmuseum of Taos, New Mexico is a landmark show of artists who work with adobe as an essential material in their practice.

I feel beyond grateful to show alongside and be in conversation with artists, Christine Howard Sandoval, rafa esparza, Gabriel Chaile, Ronald Rael and Santino Gonzalez.

The exhibition also includes works by the amazing Carole Crews, and guest curated gallery spaces by Deborah Lujan of Taos Pueblo and Guadalupe Tafoya of Taos, NM.

A huge thank you to the curatorial team, Nicole Dial-Kay @nicoledialkay , Adam Geluda Gildar @a_damn_guitar and Kate Miller @kkatemiller . Also a big thank you to Eric Carpio @carpioej at Fort Garland Museum!

Alongside the exhibition is a forthcoming publication that includes writings by the wonderful Raquel Gutiérrez @raquefella and Alicia Inéz Guzmán @inezsayz . As well as select essays by the artists themselves.

The exhibition has additional installations at the Fort Garland Museum in Southern Colorado as an effort to embrace the cultural and architectural landscape that New Mexico and Southern Colorado share. I highly recommend visiting @fortgarlandmuseum

And! October 3rd, there will performances by Santino and myself at the museum. Love to see you there 🤍

Installation photos by @bradtrone taken in The Harwood Museum of Art by @jokeanelopez

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3 months ago

We're pleased to share Joanna Keane Lopez @jokeanelopez in conversation about her film "A Raven Croaked like a Witch from a Dead Pine". The project looks at the ways that ranching life, adobe building traditions, and vernacular storytelling persist within the militarized landscape of southern New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range.

Joanna has been filming extensivley in southern NM collaborating with family and community members who make up this vital community in that part of the state. Please follow Joanna to learn more about her craft and creative journey as an artist & filmmaker.

Thank you to our contributors!
🎥 @studio519abq by @jokeanelopez

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3 months ago

“Unearthing Futures / Desenterrando Futuros” Artist Spotlight: Joanna Keane Lopez

Joanna Keane Lopez (b. 1991, Albuquerque, New Mexico) is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of sculpture, photography, site specific installation, and vernacular craft traditions of the American Southwest. Her practice engages earthen architecture, craft methodologies, and archival research to examine relationships between land, architecture, and material histories through adobe, wood, paper, and textiles. Inheriting adobe building knowledge from her family and community in New Mexico, Keane Lopez continues the craft legacy of enjarradoras and adoberas—women who specialize in traditional earthen building practices. Through sculpture, installation, and educational workshops, she reimagines vernacular building traditions and craft histories to investigate memory, fragmentation, military histories and infrastructures, environmental contamination, and the layered relationships between land and material culture.

Keane Lopez has exhibited nationally at institutions including SITE Santa Fe, The Momentary at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, San José Museum of Art, Craft Contemporary, National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum, Akron Art Museum, and Sarasota Art Museum. She has received support from New Mexico Documentary Incubator Grant, Jack K. and Gertrude Murphy Award, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Images courtesy of Joanna Keane Lopez.

@hlucefdn @terraamericanart @203fineart @fortgarlandmuseum @viaartfund @historycolorado @jokeanelopez by @jokeanelopez

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5 months ago

I’m looking forward to being in LA this weekend for the opening of tierra @craftcontemporary

I’ll have some works in the show on loan from @librarystreetcollective that explore haptic relationships to ranch architecture on militarized landscapes of White Sands Missile Range of South Central New Mexico. The works began as graphite rubbings on paper and became UV cured acrylic pigment prints on adobe.

tierra is organized by lead curator Andres Payan Estrada @andres_payan , with a curatorial committee formed by Frida Cano, Joel Garcia, Mercedes Dorame, and Cannupa Hanska Luger.

Exhibition artists include Jackie Amézquita, Natalia Arbelaez, Syd Carpenter, Teresa Castro, Armando Guadalupe Cortés, rafa esparza, Miguel Fernández de Castro, Adebunmi Gbadebo, Karla García, Christine Howard Sandoval, Joanna Keane Lopez, Ruben Olguin, Iman Person, Jeri Redcorn

An accompanying catalog, produced for the exhibition, includes contributions by Tania Candiani, Megan Dorame, Andrea Everett, Sky Hopinka, Dylan McLaughlin, TK Smith

tierra is created in collaboration with the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts. @el.rubincenter taken in Los Angeles, California by @jokeanelopez

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5 months ago