Biography:
Erin Elder is an artist and writer guided by interests in land use, experimental collaboration, and non-traditional modes of expression. Her research-driven projects work with a broad definition of art to consider how people and places affect one another. Erin’s recent work uniquely combines fieldwork, drawing, and writing in a place-based Substack called site & scene. Her drawings have been exhibited throughout the Rocky Mountain West, Germany and Canada. Her writing has been published by University of Minnesota Press, University of Houston Press, in various regional magazines, as a self-published blog and two self-published books. She was a fellow with Center for Art + Environment at Nevada Museum of Art (2017-2019) and with the Department of Creativity + Innovation at Colorado College (2021-2023). She won a New Mexico Writers award in 2024 and has been an artist or writer in residence at PLAYA, Ucross, High Desert Test Sites, Writing Space, Epicenter, North Street Collective, Jentel, Cannonball, and Caldera. With an MA in Curatorial Practice from California College of the Arts, Erin worked as a curator for over a decade, driven by a commitment to the creative process and direct support for artists. From 2009-2013, she cooperatively founded and directed PLAND, an off-the-grid residency program near Tres Piedras, NM. From 2012-2015, she was the Visual Arts Director at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, where she curated 50+ exhibitions and many public programs. She also produced curatorial projects with a variety of institutions including the Museum of Capitalism, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Creative Time, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, International Symposium on Electronic Arts and the City of Albuquerque. From 2015-2026 she operated Gibbous, a consulting service that supported committed artists at pivotal moments in their careers. Since 2025, Erin has been a PhD student in Geography at University of New Mexico where she is studying the phenomenological lifeworld of the Pecos River using creative methods. She is a research assistant for Southwest Environmental Finance Center where she directs an oral history project that engages with water operators around the US. She is also a research assistant for RAVEL, a field program associated with UNM's Art & Ecology department. Erin lives on ancestral Tiwa lands in central New Mexico. Her home, just outside the city of Albuquerque and on the banks of the Rio Grande, is also a community-nurtured farm and a refuge for traveling artists.Education:
BA Prescott College: Social Thought & Peace Studies and Contemporary Visual Art; MA California College of the Arts: Curatorial Practice
Select Publications:
“Drinking Water in Albuquerque: a tour from river to tap,” Edible New Mexico, May 2025 (illustrated essay). “Becoming More Cottonwood,” Southwest Contemporary, Rooted: Poetics of Place, Fall 2022 (essay and illustrations) Trails Across the Bighorns, self-published, edition of 100, 2020. The Rites of Land: Willits Edition, self-published, edition of 100, 2018. Sbarge, Suzanne and Andrea Polli, eds. “Power: Gridlocked,” Machine Wilderness: 18th International Symposium on Electronic Arts. Santa Fe: Radius Books, 2012. Auther, Elissa and Adam Lerner, eds. “How to Build a Commune: Drop City’s Influence on the Southwestern Commune Movement,” West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965–1977, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. 516 ARTS, ed. “Fort-Building or the Path to Radical Change,” Worlds Outside This One exhibition catalog. Albuquerque: 516 ARTS, 2011. “The Teacher Was the Sixties: Learning from Pacific High School,” Proximity, Chicago, vol. 8, Fall 2010. “All Eyes on Houston.” On the Banks of the Bayou City: The Center for Land Use Interpretation in Houston. Houston: University of Houston, 2009. “973 Possibilities and How To Make Sense of It?” The Institute for Social Research: 90 Days on Communal Living. Stuttgart: Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, 2008.
