Moving Forward, Looking Back

Moving Forward, Looking Back: Journeys Across the Old Spanish Trail is an artistic project combining photography, video, and sound by Spanish artist Janire Nájera who has explored the Spanish legacy along the Old Spanish Trail.

Link to Virtual Exhibition: http://www.movingforwardlookingback.us/Chapman/MFLB.html

Moving Forward, Looking Back began in March 2014 with a road trip across the Southwest following the footsteps of trader Antonio Armijo, who opened the route of the Old Spanish Trail between the states of New Mexico and California in the 19th century. Janire Nájera traveled by RV, starting her journey in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the oldest continuously occupied state capital in the United States, and passing by areas of Colorado, Arizona, Utah and Nevada until finally arriving in Los Angeles, California. This journey evokes the spirit of adventure synonymous with the trail and the wider depiction of these six states ever since they were frontier lands or environments of discovery.

Moving Forward, Looking Back is a project of SPAIN arts&culture, the cultural program of the Embassy of Spain. In August 2013 there was an open call among the members of SPAIN RED, a platform for the promotion of Spanish artists and creators in the United States. The premise of the contest was to present a significant panorama of the culture of the “Spanish-American”, the living testimony of more than 300 years of Spanish presence in this territory. This project sought to reflect this experience with a contemporary and attractive language through a creative, original, and accessible vision. There were more than 30 proposals, and the proposal presented by photographer Janire Nájera was chosen.