Unsettling Mormonism
“One of the characteristics of trauma is the deep desire to repress it. Until you tell the story, til you face the truth of the horrors that have happened—that harm will haunt you, haunt your dreams as an individual, haunt your collective unconscious as a society.”
- Reverend Serene Jones
Unsettling Mormonism is an archive of unsettling histories, mythistories, and mystories from U.S. & Mormon settler colonialism, white supremacy, and imperialism. Through this project, I research, write, disseminate, and build community around unsettling histories and ideologies of Mormonism & the settler-colonization of Utah which were never overtly taught to most Utahns or Mormons.
I wasn't always interested in unsettling the settler-colonial project my ancestors helped build. When I moved to Tiwa land to study Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico I was interested in climate collapse, extinction, and social justice. But I was unsure of what my work was within those intersecting crises. So, I mostly focused on my love of land and the importance of disassimilating from the colonial divide between humans and nature by trying to become a rock and talking to them.
I tried to become a rock to try to fall into deep time and avoid feeling all the grief attached to all the massive, callous death created through kyriarchy of violences this country was founded on. Simultaneously, I sought to become closer to the complexity of this time by asking the wisdom of the rocks by talking and listening to them.
But while living here in so-called New Mexico, home of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt against colonization, I realized I needed problematize this love I have for the southwest deserts I was raised by. The strong presence of Pueblo and Diné People here and their ongoing work toward strengthening their sovereignty in their home/lands showed me that my work is to unsettle settlers settled in their ways––to learn how my blue eyes and unmelanated skin came to occupy these lands under the hot desert sun.
This led to my graduate thesis project, from, which was made and exhibited in Tiwa land in so-called Albuquerque, New Mexico. After completing the exhibition, I knew the works needed to go to Utah so that they could share these buried histories with those who also grew from them, are haunted by them, and hold a responsibility to them.
But the COVID-19 pandemic canceled plans of physical travel. So, we went online and Unsettling Mormonism was born as an Instagram page.
As the Unsettling Mormonism Instagram page continued to grow I wanted a website version in order to make the hundreds of short visual essays more accessible.
This project is a gift to all those whose ancestral traumas were buried and so now "haunt you, haunt your dreams as an individual, haunt your collective unconscious as a society." May we "face the truth of the horrors that have happened" as well as the ideologies normalized in order to justify and render innocent these horrors––past and present.
I wasn't always interested in unsettling the settler-colonial project my ancestors helped build. When I moved to Tiwa land to study Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico I was interested in climate collapse, extinction, and social justice. But I was unsure of what my work was within those intersecting crises. So, I mostly focused on my love of land and the importance of disassimilating from the colonial divide between humans and nature by trying to become a rock and talking to them.
I tried to become a rock to try to fall into deep time and avoid feeling all the grief attached to all the massive, callous death created through kyriarchy of violences this country was founded on. Simultaneously, I sought to become closer to the complexity of this time by asking the wisdom of the rocks by talking and listening to them.
But while living here in so-called New Mexico, home of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt against colonization, I realized I needed problematize this love I have for the southwest deserts I was raised by. The strong presence of Pueblo and Diné People here and their ongoing work toward strengthening their sovereignty in their home/lands showed me that my work is to unsettle settlers settled in their ways––to learn how my blue eyes and unmelanated skin came to occupy these lands under the hot desert sun.
This led to my graduate thesis project, from, which was made and exhibited in Tiwa land in so-called Albuquerque, New Mexico. After completing the exhibition, I knew the works needed to go to Utah so that they could share these buried histories with those who also grew from them, are haunted by them, and hold a responsibility to them.
But the COVID-19 pandemic canceled plans of physical travel. So, we went online and Unsettling Mormonism was born as an Instagram page.
As the Unsettling Mormonism Instagram page continued to grow I wanted a website version in order to make the hundreds of short visual essays more accessible.
This project is a gift to all those whose ancestral traumas were buried and so now "haunt you, haunt your dreams as an individual, haunt your collective unconscious as a society." May we "face the truth of the horrors that have happened" as well as the ideologies normalized in order to justify and render innocent these horrors––past and present.
“May we go forward in repentance, which does not require individual culpability & shows how a community owns and understands the reverberations of its actions and its realities.May we seek repentance, which means to walk in a different direction. It’s so much more than, ‘I’m sorry.’”
- Reverend Serene Jones
Visit the Unsettling Mormonism Instagram page
