Culture - The Daily Lobo

Culture

UNM student celebrates body, identity in thesis exhibition

Jordyn Bachmann | April 17

In Latin, “Mea Culpa” is an expression used to accept the responsibility of guilt or wrongdoing. The phrase is used most often in religious contexts to confess and atone for sin, and is ironically the title of senior Lucien V. Sebastian’s bachelor of fine arts thesis exhibition. “Mea Culpa!,” which is currently displayed in the John Sommers Gallery, explores living as oneself unapologetically and without guilt while existing in cisgender, heteronormative spaces as a transgender man. Sebastian’s thesis is a personal story of queerness, transgenderism, human intervention and the complexities of emotion.

Culture

Onset aims to connect creatives

John Scott | April 17

“A LinkedIn for creatives,” is how the Onset app was described in an email to the Daily Lobo from the app’s founder Inès Bensalem. Bensalem, a French film producer in fiction and documentary work, started the app to take an industry that operates largely on word-of-mouth and put it into a more social media-like platform.

Culture

REVIEW: New “Mario” film a magical journey through the sewers

Addison Key | April 14

Don’t bet against success. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” brings adorable adaptations of the Mario characters to the silver screen for all audiences alike — from children and families to the most devoted Mushroom Kingdom gamers. Illumination’s animation style captures highly detailed depictions of the characters and the Mario universe, giving the audience background into the gaming environments that defined many of our childhoods. But if you think this movie is an attempt to encourage viewers to play more Mario games through nostalgia, you’re right.

Culture

Students get down for donations at LoboTHON

Zacaria Adonicam | April 10

LoboTHON, a student-run philanthropy effort, raised $47,288.90 for the University of New Mexico Children’s Hospital, this past Saturday, April 8. The event centers around a 10-hour dance marathon that has been held on campus for the past nine years and has raised over $400,000 combined from past years, according to their website. The UNM Children’s Hospital is a part of the Children’s Miracle Network, which helps fundraise for hospitals to cover costs for the children being treated there, according to CMN. Kasey Lenning, the executive director of LoboTHON, has worked fundraising for the past two years

Culture

UNM performs ‘auto-bio-choreo-graphy’ of prolific, controversial artist

Spenser Willden | April 10

There’s a line in “Jérôme Bel,” presented over the weekend by the University of New Mexico Department of Theatre and Dance, that says, “The most beautiful thing a performer can bring to their audience is their vulnerability.” The piece, titled “Jérôme Bel” after the author, French contemporary choreographer, is directed by professor Dominika Laster and reenacted by UNM assistant professor of theater Alejandro Tomás Rodriguez. In the piece, Rodriguez (as Bel) presents a performance-lecture on groundbreaking works from the artist’s history of unique choreography.

Culture

REVIEW: ‘Journey West’ offers an experienced perspective on an old trope

Henry Hammel | April 10

Albuquerque Museum’s exhibition “Journey West: Danny Lyon” features 175 masterworks of photography, film and montage from celebrated American photographer Danny Lyon. His work on display spans a 60-year career and encompasses a wide range of topics. The exhibit draws from his series on the Civil Rights Movement, the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club, the Texas prison system, various protests, and some of his more recent work on fires, drought and climate change in New Mexico.

Culture

Students and faculty tackle climate change with art

Maddie Pukite | April 10

“Hope is hard.” So will read the new linen banners in the Honors College, which depict silhouettes of students with found poems. To showcase community response to climate change at the University of New Mexico, two professors in the Honors College selected two students to work collectively on a cyanogram art display. They designed the banners and wrote the poems based on responses to a survey where students could submit their thoughts, hopes and fears surrounding the climate crisis.

Culture

Quintessence fools Beliebers, engages community

Zara Roy and Addison Key | April 10

Matthew Greer, the artistic director of “Quintessence: a community of singers,” has addressed questions about the piece they will be performing for their annual Summer Choir Festival in a letter posted on Saturday, April 1. “We have commissioned a new piece, from one of the most popular and controversial musical artists of the last two decades,” Greer wrote. “Justin Bieber.” The letter redirected readers to the choir’s website, which said that the group will prepare a performance of Johannes Brahms’ “German Requiem,” the other JB. Registration to sing at the festival will open on April 20.

Culture

REVIEW: ‘Air’ is certainly a movie with a plot, but not much else

John Scott | April 10

If I had to pick an up-and-coming film trend bound to dominate both theaters and streaming platforms for the next couple of years, it would have to be the “nostalgia-ridden biopic featuring varyingly successful creative choices that feel subversive and fun for a subgenre largely dedicated to recounting real life stories.” This could describe a number of films released in recent years (2022’s “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story,” 2023’s “Tetris” and “Paint”). This list certainly includes “Air,” a film that is, if not anything else, moderately entertaining.

Culture

REVIEW: 'Bend Skin' is a short, powerful labor of love

Detroit Kallunki | April 10

Yomi Tafdor’s newly released poetry collection “Bend Skin” combines prose with beautifully complex traditional poetry and rhythm, and small, full-color abstract art by illustrator Nujhat Adrita. Much of Tadfor’s poetry is based around her identity and the way it has changed over time. Tafdor, a current student at the University of New Mexico, is originally from Cameroon. Much of her poetry is about the lived experience of marginalized people in the United States and the way her experiences have influenced her sense of individuality and personhood.

Culture

NM Renaissance Celtic Festival celebrates a culture of history and fantasy

Henry Hammel | March 30

The second annual New Mexico Renaissance Celtic Festival was held this past weekend, March 24 to 26, at Wildlife West Nature Park in Edgewood NM. The event, which also hosted a variety of Celtic, medieval, viking and pirate-themed celebrations, included vendors, performers, cosplayers and more. Eric Vigil, who also produces the annual Pirate and Viking Summer Bash, created this event in part to celebrate the Scottish clans of those who live in New Mexico. This year’s Celtic celebrations included local dance performances from the McTeggart Irish Dancers and Highland Dancers of Albuquerque, as well as music performances by Albuquerque-based artists.

Culture

REVIEW: Lana Del Rey’s latest album is an affectionate work from the complicated artist

Addison Key | March 28

In Lana Del Rey’s new album, “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd,” released on March 24, she insists we are wrong about her. Del Rey embodies an attitude that succeeds in representing the violence and anxieties of girlhood, but fails to respond to her history of cultural appropriation. She fills 1 hour and 17 minutes with conflicted representations of family, memory and legacy. Her song “Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep-sea fishing,” the 11th song on the album, begins by confronting common claims about her manufactured identity into her lyricism: “I know they think that it took somebody else to make me beautiful … but they’re wrong.”

Culture

5 and Why: 5 ways to relieve stress after midterms

Maddie Pukite | March 27

As midterms wrap up and the semester progresses, many students may find themselves burnt out or exhausted. David Hernandez, a third-year vocal performance and international studies student at the University of New Mexico, gave his tips on how he takes time to relax and be present as the second half of the semester starts. Yoga Yoga is a spiritual and physical practice that can be meditative and offer peace of mind, along with being a way to stretch and care for your body. Recently getting back into practicing yoga, Hernandez said it gives him a reason to wake up early and de-stress before the day.

Culture

Capturing an era through film photography

Addison Key | March 27

The use of film photography has soared since 2015, according to The New York Times. Film photography has been matched with certain aesthetics that overwhelm social media feeds with grainy, lower quality “photo dumps.” Curating posts that strive for perfection have become “cringe,” according to an article from Vogue that explains how photo dumps have answered “overly-manicured” aesthetics with the “moodiness of Tumblr-era emo sensibilities.” Social media platform Tumblr could have had an effect on the resurgence of film, according to Emma Ressel, a first year photography graduate student at the University of New Mexico.

Culture

REVIEW: Fall Out Boy makes heartbreak feel good on ‘So Much (For) Stardust’

Marcela Johnson | March 27

The newest album by Fall Out Boy, titled “So Much (For) Stardust,” proves it was never just a phase, mom. The eighth album sees the band going back to their earlier work in more ways than one without feeling played out. The album feels like a reaffirmation by the band of what made them great with the intent to move forward. This album balances long ballads with shorter pieces of spoken poetry and monologues. This album is longer than the band's previous three albums with 13 tracks coming in at a total of 44 minutes and 20 seconds. Fall Out Boy makes good use of the time, repeating themes of moving on — but still holding on — throughout the album.

GALLERY: Fusion Theatre Company presents "Life X 3"

Culture

Fusion Theatre Company production mixes up life 3 times

Gabriel Garcia | March 23

Oscar Wilde famously said, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” Yet, “Life x 3,” the latest show to be put on by the Fusion Theatre Company in Albuquerque, takes inspiration from the nature of the universe itself, according to Jacqueline Reid, the director of Fusion’s expansive production of the show. Written by Yasmina Reza, “Life x 3” presents the same raucous dinner party from three different possible universes, which the press release describes as “a time/space continuum of repetition, redundancy, and revelation within the most intimate of relationships and their elemental ties to the universe.”

Culture

Lobo Gardens cultivate community and sustainability on campus

Zara Roy | March 23

For 12 years, the University of New Mexico’s Lobo Gardens have been growing as a University mainstay for the creation of community, environmental awareness and, of course, delicious produce. Tucked behind a building on the corner of Vassar Drive NE and Campus Boulevard NE, this quiet growing space and “living laboratory” teems with life, according to volunteer coordinator Amara Szrom. The Gardens are an open space for students to help, learn and grow their own plants. In addition to being a volunteer space open on Tuesdays from 1 to 3 p.m., classes, workshops and guest speakers are hosted out of the garden as a part of its role as an outdoor classroom, according to Szrom.

Culture

UNM's Arita porcelain studio honors process and history

Maddie Pukite | March 20

Students at the Arita Porcelain Studio, located in the art annex at the University of New Mexico, are unique in their study of the traditional 400-year-old Japanese art of Arita porcelain; UNM is the only university in the United States with faculty authorized to instruct in this art form outside of Japan. Arita porcelain is moreso about the practice and tradition that goes into the process rather than the final product, according to Kathy Cyman, the professor of practice who leads the program. Arita porcelain is a practice out of Arita, Japan, a town in the Saga prefecture, where Izumiyama Kaolin Quarry was founded, the first source in Japan for the raw material that goes into making porcelain clay.

Culture

Magic: The Gathering Club offers unique gaming experience to UNM students

Elizabeth Secor | March 20

On Monday evenings from 5-10 p.m., University of New Mexico students can immerse themselves in a different magical world at “Magic: The Gathering Club,” which focuses on building a community at UNM centered around the card game. “Magic: The Gathering” is a collectable trading card game by Wizards of the Coast built around deck-building, where players can cast spells and summon different creatures to try to eliminate their opponents, according to Daniel Kinghorn, club member. “There are many different ways to play, but they all allow a lot of creativity to build decks that are fun and exciting for all kinds of players,” Kinghorn wrote to the Daily Lobo. “It’s one of the only places where 15 birds can fight an eldritch monster and win.”

UNM Photo MFA Candidate's solo-exhibition at Strata Gallery in Santa Fe preview.jpg

Culture

UNM alum celebrates home and family in solo art exhibition

Zara Roy | March 20

On Tuesday, March 21, “Poems From Kay Pacha,” a solo exhibition from University on New Mexico alumnus Rosalba Breazeale, will open at the Strata Gallery in Santa Fe. The show centers around the idea of homeland; Breazeale pulled from their own identity as a member of the Ashkenazi and Peruvian diasporas, as well as their journey in finding a sense of home in Albuquerque. “‘Poems from Kay Pacha’ is a collaboration between my body and my plant relative,” Breazeale said. “Since moving to Albuquerque, I’ve been trying to establish more of a sense of home for myself, so in order to become more rooted in this place, things like getting to know the lands and things like foraging respectfully have been really important for me.”