Liberty Stalnaker - The Daily Lobo

Culture

Prolific LA photographer returns to roots at UNM photo department

Liberty Stalnaker | April 27

Mark McKnight is an artist and assistant professor of photography at the University of New Mexico. Working primarily in black-and-white analog photography, the works showcased on McKnight’s portfolio website variously depict jagged desert landscapes, nude figures, sex acts and cloud-spotted skies. “Landscape, body, transcendence, or even the spiritual, the erotic, my identity — I’m brown, Nuevomexicano, but also mixed-race, so I have a complicated relationship to identity — if I had to sum it up with one word, it would be the subjective,” McKnight said, describing the concepts his photography portrays. “As a being in the world, I can only speak for myself. My work is a reflection of my subjectivity, which is, I think, what it is for everyone,” McKnight said.

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Dozens gather downtown to protest Atlanta spa shootings, anti-Asian sentiments

Liberty Stalnaker | March 28

In the early evening hours of March 28, around 40 protestors, organizers and speakers gathered in downtown Albuquerque near the Bernalillo County Courthouse. Standing beneath the “View From Gold Mountain”, a large sculpture commemorating a landmark case in Chinese-Americans’ civil rights history, they came together to decry the recent string of murders in the Atlanta area. On March 16, six women of Asian descent were killed in multiple shooting sprees, carried out by a single white male at Atlanta spas and massage parlors. Though the suspect told police he was motivated by an addiction to sex, the shootings have nonetheless sparked widespread denouncement as anti-Asian and misogynistic hate crimes.

Culture

Local parkour trainer Andrew Smith explains dedication to UNM

Liberty Stalnaker | November 13

Parkour trainer Andrew Smith stands out in the crowd at the University of New Mexico, leaping from concrete walls and vaulting the circles of outdoor seating across from Mitchell Hall. “I’m like a machine, pretty much. That’s why people see me all the time,” the 32-year-old Smith said. “I usually practice every day — it just depends what mood I’m in or how my body’s feeling. For the most part, I practice for two hours or more (daily).” Smith’s commitment to training frequently and for substantial stretches of time has made him a recognizable figure at UNM.

Culture

UNM graduate Joel-Peter Witkin reflects on controversial photography career

Liberty Stalnaker | November 2

Joel-Peter Witkin is a University of New Mexico graduate with a prolific profession as a photographer of taboo subjects. Witkin is known primarily for his ornately composed photographs of subjects ranging from socially outcast figures to deceased persons or body parts. One of Witkin’s most well-known pieces is “Le Baiser,” an image of a severed and halved head whose pieces have been faced toward one another in an apparent kiss. Such subject matter has led Witkin to face his fair share of critical lambasting, with a 1993 article in the New York Times claiming his “prettified and pretentious images do little to illuminate the issues of life and death they raise.” A later profile in the Seattle Times noted his work had been deemed “the snuff film of the art world.”

Culture

Fine arts students face unique challenges, new perspectives with distance learning

Liberty Stalnaker | August 30

Methods of learning and practice have changed radically for University of New Mexico fine arts students because of distancing procedures amid the coronavirus pandemic in the fall 2020 semester. As a plethora of courses are now being held primarily or solely online, students in hands-on art studies have voiced a number of concerns with the quality and value of their current education. Photography major Elizabeth Wilkinson said distanced learning affects not only the production of her art, but the nature of her creativity. "When I'm around other people, I get most of my inspiration and most of my motivation, so not having those people around has been a huge burden on my work," Wilkinson said.

News

UNM funds pandemic substance use disorder research projects

Megan Gleason and Liberty Stalnaker | August 12

Only 10% of people in the United States that need substance use disorder treatment are actually getting it, according to Dr. Laura Brown, a clinical assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of New Mexico. One of the University’s Grand Challenges initiatives, which launched in the spring of 2019 as a tripartite research project, has now been partially redirected from its original mission to boost that treatment number to studying the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on substance use disorders. The Substance Use Disorders Grand Challenge team, led by Katie Witkiewitz and Brandi Fink, recently allocated funding for four pilot research projects examining the impact of the pandemic and stay-at-home orders on substance use patterns and mental health.

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Expansion of ‘Operation Legend’ into Albuquerque prompts hundreds to protest downtown

Liberty Stalnaker | August 3

As the work day came to a close on July 31, Albuquerque’s courthouse district resembled a ghost town. Roads were barricaded for blocks in each direction, and the air felt still in the absence of the usual motorized vehicle traffic. But by 6 p.m., hundreds had assembled at the intersection of Fourth Street and Lomas Boulevard chanting, burning herbs and readying shields. The assembled protesters shouted that they were rallying against the influx of federal agents into Albuquerque.