A Matter of When: Stories of New Mexico’s Downwinders (in progress)

Detonated in Southern New Mexico on July 16, 1945, Trinity’s residual fallout traveled as far as Canada, Mexico, and 46 U.S. states. Half a million people lived within the primary 150 square-mile radiation zone of the world’s first atomic bomb. A Matter of When: Stories of New Mexico’s Downwinders is a photographic and documentary exploration of the New Mexicans who live(d) in the 50-mile square radius of Trinity and continue to experience the effects of radiation exposure. 80 years later, the legacy of the Trinity test lives on in astounding rates of cancer and illness in these communities. This project uses archival materiality—from family photographs, letters, documents, interviews—to represent the deterioration of land and bodies exposed to radiation. The downwinders commonly say “We don’t ask if we’re going to get cancer, we ask when.”

Whether through a corroded family archive, oral histories, or photographs of domestic life, this work aims to embolden collective visions of future and challenge imposed versions of Time. As we attempt to preserve memory and history, how do we decide what is remembered? Who makes those decisions? This work follows the lead of family matriarchs who don’t rest until everything sacred is well-maintained, until the bits and pieces of their family’s past are securely fastened into photo albums, inscribed into history books, told boisterously around the dinner table, and made immortal. With the act of documentation is a belief that these stories deserve to live into the future. This photographic work is a project of preservation for the future of these communities.

Louisa

Louisa Lopez stands outside her ranch in San Antonio, NM near Socorro. Louisa's husband Richard died of cancer 4 years ago and his family has been plagued by cancer for generations. Louisa and her husband joined the Tularosa Basin Downwinder's Consortium (TBDC) after noticing high mortality rates in their community and wanting to gather data in Socorro about the community's health and cancer rates. After a recent stroke, Louisa has been unable to continue her engagement with TBDC.

Untitled (Cows)

Paul Pino's parents and grandparents lived on this property in Carrizozo in 1945 just 30 miles away from the Trinity test. Ranchers living near the bomb recall their cows turning white from the radiation fallout that sprinkled over their farms.

Untitled (Amber's Daily Routine)

“The hardest thing for me is the things I gave up… I had these dreams…then I started getting sicker” - Amber

Amber’s daily pill routine covers various health conditions, including 5 autoimmune diseases, that are rare for her age (37 years old). In the Carrizozo/Capitán area, Amber has many friends and neighbors who are getting sick in their 30s and 40s. Amber believes people get sick because “[the radiation] is in the soil.”

Reaching For?

Lucy Benevidez Garwood and her oldest daughter Margaret “Cookie” in 1950. Cookie died of uterine cancer in 2014 and grew up in Tularosa, NM just 55 miles from the Trinity site. 5 generations in their family have had cancer.

What Lies Ahead for Her?

Josephine and her niece Doris watch Josephine's great granddaughter play. Doris's mom Lucy (Josephine's sister) was born in the very room they sit in 93 years ago. Josephine also lost her granddaughter to leukemia a few years ago at the age of 22 years old.

Lucy at home

“We went on with our lives like nothing happened…until everybody started dying” - Lucy Benevidez Garwood

Lucy Benevidez Garwood was born on December 3, 1931 on North Bookout Road in Tularosa, NM. She was 12 years old when the Trinity test was detonated just 50 miles away from her home. The oldest of 10 siblings, she has now survived many family members who also grew up in the Tularosa area and have suffered many different kinds of cancer. Lucy’s two surviving daughters have suffered breast cancer and her eldest daughter Cookie died of uterine cancer in 2014.

Mudpies

Doris’s writing on a copy of an image from her family archive. Doris and her friends grew up playing in the irrigation ditches around Tularosa and now many of them have suffered cancer or other radiogenic illnesses.

Untitled (Amber’s Daily Routine)

“The hardest thing for me is the things I gave up… I had these dreams…then I started getting sicker” - Amber

Scars

Doris had a mastectomy a few years ago after a battle with breast cancer. She lost her sister, a niece, many family members and neighbors to cancer. She also experiences undiagnosed health problems that she attributes to her and her family’s proximity to Trinity just 50 miles away.

Wes

“We just went on…it’s just like having a war or something in the country. It blew up, people rebuild and get up and go on” - Wes Burris

Wes was 5 years old in Socorro, NM when the Trinity bomb was detonated and remembers the windows in his house shattering, the entire house shaking and everything being "so bright you couldn't see." He asked his dad, "Did the sun blow up?" Many of Wes’s family members died of cancer and he is one of the few surviving witnesses of Trinity.