Photo of an underpass

Exploring Art: Marisa Demarco, Szu-Han Ho, and Raven Chacon’s “Tiguex”

Marisa Demarco and Szu-Han Ho bring sound, performance, and installation into conversation with memory, place, and collaboration. Their works span immersive choral pieces, site-specific soundscapes, and experimental compositions that challenge how we listen and connect.
September 23, 2025

Marisa Demarco is an installation and performance artist, musician, and composer based in Albuquerque, N.M. Demarco received her MFA in Experimental Art & Technology from the University of New Mexico in 2022. She is also a journalist and works as a national editor with States Newsroom, a network of nonprofit outlets across the country.

She has composed a wide variety of songs and collaborative works. She composed “Overnight Dreamform,” an eight-hour song based on the adult sleep cycle and played on the radio for an audience of dreamers. She created “The Mountains Wore Down To The Valleys,” a collaborative work with Adri De La Cruz, which included 21 of Demarco’s compositions installed as 21 vinyl records playing continuously and eroding at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. She developed an outdoor sound installation, mural, and performance of the work “There Must Be Other Names For The River,” co-created by Demarco, Jessica Zeglin, and Dylan McLaughlin, for SITE Santa Fe. Her pieces have been exhibited in galleries and museums, including 516 Arts, GRAFT Gallery, and the UNM Art Museum. Marisa Demarco was also recently featured in a performance of Autumn Chacon’s Malinxe opera at the 12th Site International.

Szu-Han Ho is a Professor of Art & Ecology. She works in performance, sound, and installation, which explores the relationship between bodies and sites of memory. She often works collaboratively, through collective action, structured improvisation, and group composition. Recent projects include “MIGRANT SONGS,” a choral performance art piece based on stories and songs of human and nonhuman migration; and “Shelter in Place,” a sculptural installation and performance inspired by her family’s history in Taiwan.

Raven Chacon’s “Tiguex” unfolds throughout the Albuquerque area on Saturday, September 27, 2025, from sunup to sundown. Marisa Demarco co-composed movement XVIII, “Cantata,” which will take place that evening, where I-40 and the river intersect in the Duranes neighborhood.

Marya Errin Jones, Antonia Montoya, Liz Rincon, Mauro Woody, Kenneth Cornell, Monica and Marisa Demarco, and Professors Szu-Han Ho and Ana Alonso-Minutti will perform the piece. So excited for this to take place and to see more incredible work from both Szu-Han and Marisa!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
LEARN MORE about the upcoming “Tiguex” performance
READ the Indigenous Opera Goes (Somewhere) Outdoors
EXPLORE the work of Marisa Demarco by checking out her website at marisademarco.space or following on Instagram @papermarisa.
EXPLORE the work of Szu-Han Ho by checking out their website at szuhanho.net or following on Instagram @szhnho.

A road painted on a board

UNM Artists Take the Spotlight in Southwest Contemporary Vol. 12: Obsession

Southwest Contemporary Vol. 12: Obsession features some incredible work from several of the amazing people who comprise the Art Department. Current second-year MFA students Luka Berkley and Justine Kablack, recent MFA graduate Taylor Engel, and instructor Jessamyn Lovell all have work featured in this most recent issue of Southwest Contemporary.

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Art Faculty: Awards, Residencies & Revisited Projects

Distinguished Professor Jim Stone is an exhibiting artist who uses photography. His photographs have been published in three monographs and exhibited internationally; they are represented in the permanent collections of over 30 major museums and public archives.