Photo by Mary Lance
Basia Irland is a sculptor and installation artist, a poet and book artist, and an activist in water issues. She is Professor Emerita, Department of Art and Art History, University of New Mexico, where she established the Arts and Ecology Program. In 2009 Basia had five solo exhibitions, four group shows, and a cinema screening of her eight video documentaries. She had images of her work included in Art in America, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Examiner. Irland was the first artist honored for her work with the environment by the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and the Bureau of Land Management. A Harville Award from Evergreen College brought her to Olympia, Washington four times to work across disciplines on projects focused on the Nisqually watershed. In 2010 she will lecture at Stanford University, and the University of California, Davis (sponsored by seven centers, institutes, and departments), and present a weeklong workshop at the University of West Virginia focusing on the pollution of that state's watersheds. She is invited to participate in the international think tank, Foundation for the Future, Bellevue, Washington.
Awards, Grants, Fellowships
The interdisciplinary nature of her work and its impacts in fields other than art has been recognized by grants and awards from a number of agencies and foundations not usually found in an artist's resume; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Foundation, the President's Council on Sustainable Development, Bureau of Reclamation's Water Conservation Program Grant, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife. In addition, Irland has received over forty other awards including a Fulbright Senior research Fellowship for Southeast Asia, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Grant (sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation), a McCune Foundation Grant, a Turner Foundation Grant, and a Frank Waters Foundation Literary Award. The University of New Mexico honored Irland's research as an artist by appointing her to the prestigious post of Faculty Scholar.
In 2008 she received an interdisciplinary research grant from UNM with the Chair of Biology to create a video documentary, Bilharzia Blues, about the waterborne disease, schistosomiasis in Nepal, Egypt, and Ethiopia.
Books
2007 Water Library. University of New Mexico Press. 234 pages. ISBN 978-0-8263-3675-0. Buy the book
Water Video Documentaries
Written, filmed, directed, and produced by Irland
See Videos for descriptions and preview clips.
Audio CD Recording
Clandestine Calaverasis an audio CD with words of chemical pesticides found in the Calaveras River, California, sung by Mezzosoprano, Laurelle Mathison, with Cellist Scott Halligan and music by Andrew Ardizzoia. Also includes a set of 9 postcards with molecular structures and gas chromatography/mass spectrometer chromatograms of chemical pesticides found in the Calaveras River, California overlaid on images of the river.
Exhibitions and Collections
Over thirty one-person exhibitions, and more than 100 group exhibitions. Represented in numerous private and public collections, including: Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.; Chicago Art Institute; National Archives of Canada, Ottawa; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; University of Massachusetts Art Museum, Amherst; Ruth and Marvin Sachner Archives of Concrete and Visual Poetry, Miami, Florida; Albuquerque Museum; Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; Capitol Arts Foundation of New Mexico, Santa Fe; the University of New Mexico Art Museum; the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico.
Lectures
India (Institute for Development Studies, Jaipur; Center for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad)
England (Dartington College of Art, Devon; Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, Exeter; Falmouth University College, Cornwall;
University of Bath; Lancaster University)
Indonesia (Duta Wacana University, Yogyakarta, Java)
Across the United States and Canada
Articles
Articles published in nine Canadian, British, and American books and journals, including Water In the History of Photography, Encyclopedia of Water, Wiley Press and an interview with David Williams in Performance Research, London, England
Photographs and Poetry
Photographs and poetry published in ten Canadian and American journals including The New Quarterly: New Directions in Canadian Writing and Parnassus: Poetry in Review
Rainwater Harvesting Projects
Albuquerque Museum, Desert Fountain. Pueblo of Isleta Native American Community Center. University of New Mexico; Biology Museum, Jonson Gallery, and Student Union Building.
Performance Art Works
Ten Performance Art Pieces: Europe (London, Glasgow, Paris); Canada (Montreal, Toronto); United States (New York, Massachusetts, Alabama, New Mexico). 1976-1991