Teresa Montoya: Tó Łisto (Yellow Water)

On August 5, 2015, the rupture of the abandoned Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado, released more than three million gallons of toxic wastewater into the Animas River, turning its waters a shocking shade of yellow. In the following year, artist and anthropologist Teresa Montoya (Diné, born 1984) embarked on a road trip from Silverton to Shiprock, New Mexico, retracing the path of the contaminated water and documenting its ongoing cultural, spiritual, and material effects on the Navajo Nation and other Indigenous communities downstream. Marking the ten-year anniversary of the disaster, The Block Museum of Art partners with Montoya to revisit this journey. Tó Łitso (Yellow Water) explores the enduring consequences of the Gold King Mine spill through photography, sound recordings, water samples, and cartographic data.