09/13/2026
“Freefall” a photographic installation on view now at the Tucson Museum of Art Tucson Museum of Art as a part of Fierce Bodies, an exhibition curated by Marianna Pegno Marianna around the work of Tucson poet Naomi Ortiz Naomi Ortiz
Photography by Tina Lieberman Tina Lieberman , images courtesy of the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block.
“Freefall” is made of a series of self portraits where my body is suspended in a moment of weightlessness mid fall. Referencing the positions my grandfathers’ bodies may have taken throughout their lives.
My grandpa Hoyt, was a bronc rider, construction worker and a soldier drafted into the Vietnam war despite being enrolled at NMSU in the horticulture program. He was a member of the Chaparral Gunfighters, a troop of actors who performed across the Southwest. After being forced to participate in the state sponsored violence in Vietnam he returned to the desert and repeatedly performed his own death against the backdrop of colonial violence of the SW. I project a catharsis onto this act. During this time he met my grandmother and raised her children, including my mother. My paternal grandfather, Donny, an Agua Caliente Cahuilla man, was killed by the police in NM during this same time. In these work I isolate the violent act that defined the lives of both my grandfathers, both good, honest and humble men, trapped in the US’ system of violence.
