Emily Budd
Emily Budd is a lesbian artist specializing in time travel through mold-making. Drawing from a background in bronze-casting and paleontology, her sculptural explorations challenge the human perception of time and speculate on our own futurity and fossilization. Reformative monuments, artifacts and memorials become an act of queer place-making while contemplating human sustainability when facing imminent environmental and societal change. Budd currently lives and works in Las Vegas, where she teaches Sculpture at University Of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Memorial for Queer Rhyolite, a temporary monument to dreams in the dust
Memorial for Queer Rhyolite, a temporary monument to dreams in the dust is a public work originally installed for the inaugural Bullfrog Biennial at the Goldwell Open Air Museum in October 2019. The piece memorializes a 1980s dream to establish Stonewall Park, a queer utopian effort aimed for Rhyolite, Nevada, an abandoned mining town that lies on Western Shoshone land between Death Valley National Park and the Nevada Test Site. In the 1980s, a gay couple with a small following tried to purchase Rhyolite with the hopes to escape discrimination during the height of the AIDS epidemic and create a peaceful, openly-queer community. But after relentless protest from the surrounding area, and lack of critical funding, they had to abandon their dreams. I felt compelled to memorialize their effort and shed light on their story, while also honoring the many sadness’s of their struggle. Both ephemeral and future-gazing, the work asks, did they really fail?
Memorial for Queer Rhyolite, a temporary monument to dreams in the dust is a column of packed mine tailings from the area. The form at the top represents the home they sought. Held together only with water, it will eventually crumble, burying the radically small monument hidden inside. Cast in long-lasting aluminum, it carries a message for the future: “here lie dreams of Stonewall Park, a safe and peaceful place.”
I discovered the story of Stonewall Park upon moving to Las Vegas in Spring of 2019, as my partner and I wandered the desert also seeking a new home. I referenced the Stonewall Park Collection from the UNLV Lied Library Special Collections and Archives. The Bullfrog Biennial 2019 was curated by Sierra Slentz.
References
Memorial for Queer Rhyolite, a temporary monument to dreams in the dust, by Emily Budd. Engaging Collections Journal, published in July 2020.
Queer Cities and Their Temporary Monuments — Nevada Humanities, by Emily Budd. Double Down Blog, published in September 2020.
Stonewall Park: Rhyolite, Nevada gay community undone by homophobia, racism (mentions MFQR), by Diane Bernard. The Washington Post, July 2020.
