3 Questions

On Wednesday, Richard Saxton, a member of Colorado interdisciplinary collective M12, speaks on the topic of food justice as it applies to equine issues at the Santa Fe Art Institute in their Conversations @SFAI series. Local native-foods historian and chef Lois Ellen Frank also joins the talk.

Can you tell us about working with SFAI and what you plan on presenting?
We've been in residency with SFAI for about a year. M12 is known for focusing on rural cultures and landscapes and for doing large research projects in a visual arts context. So, for the food justice project we were asked to do with SFAI, we focused on the concept of horse meat, which is in a strange no-man's land in terms of if it's ethical or not. We did quite a bit of research around the Placitas area and in the Palace of the Governors' photography collection and archives. From Nebraska and Nevada, to New Mexico and Missouri, in the past four years, there have been state legislative-level comments and revisions about horse slaughter, wild horses and slaughter plants. It's interesting to look through the archives and find similar conversations going back to the 1940s.

How does M12 approach the concept of horses as it applies to food justice?
We take a broad look at horse issues globally, from places where it's quite acceptable to slaughter horses, to places where it's not. What we've done is draw an arc, starting with the concept of the wild horse, which is a contentious issue itself, and on the opposite side of that arc is the idea of a piece of meat. In between, there are these channels following the issue of horse slaughter, issues of ethics and issues of our relationship to horses. For some people, the idea of rural America and beyond can be a very provocative issue; for us, it is not. It is simply a matter of taking an objective look at the rural environment and saying, 'This is the way it is. How can we explore it and how can we present information of cultural significance for others?'

What do you see as the sustainability or environmental issues surrounding wild horses?
Specifically, on the topic of wild horses, on one hand, there's an argument for sustainability: Horses will take care of themselves and the herd will thin itself, so hands off. On the other side, there are arguments you might hear from ranchers or the Bureau of Land Management, that the land can only support a certain amount of horses. So, we as humans have to take it upon ourselves to protect ranch land, the range and the natural ecology of the region.

Santa Fe Reporter