Events

There’s always something exciting happening at the Museum of International Folk Art! Join us for our many programs listed below.


NM Resident Free Sunday
Family Featured Event

NM Resident Free Sunday

January 5, 2020

New Mexico residents admitted FREE the first Sunday of each month. Youth 16 and under and Museum of New Mexico Foundation members are always free. We are open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Come Explore our new exhibits - Yokai:Japanese Ghosts and Demons and Música Buena: Hispano Folk Music of New Mexico

About the Museum of International Folk Art: http://www.internationalfolkart.org/

Founded in 1953 by Florence Dibell Bartlett, the Museum of International Folk Art’s mission is to foster understanding of the traditional arts to illuminate human creativity and shape a humane world. The museum holds the world’s largest international folk art collection of more than 150,000 objects from six continents and over 150 nations, representing a broad range of global artists whose artistic expressions make Santa Fe an international crossroads of culture. For many visitors, fascination with folk art begins upon seeing the whimsical toys and traditional objects within the Girard Collection. For others, the international textiles, ceramics, carvings and other cultural treasures in the Neutrogena Collection provide the allure.  The museum’s historic and contemporary Latino and Hispano folk art collections, spanning the Spanish Colonial period to modern-day New Mexico, reflect how artists respond to their time and place in ways both delightful and sobering. In 2010, the museum opened the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience, where exhibitions encourage visitors to exchange ideas on complex issues of human rights and social justice.

 706 Camino Lejo, on Museum Hill in Santa Fe, NM 87505. (505) 476-1200.

Hours: 10 am to 5 pm daily, May through October; closed Mondays November through April, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. First Sunday of Every Month is free to NM Residents.

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Exhibit Opening - From Combat to Carpets: The Art of Afghan War Rugs
Lectures and Talks Featured Event Exhibition Opening

Exhibit Opening - From Combat to Carpets: The Art of Afghan War Rugs

January 12, 2020
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

War rugs “are the production of women artists, and of communities speaking globally not just locally,” said co-curator Annemarie Sawkins. “War rugs reflect Afghanistan’s historic and modern place as a busy cultural crossroads. They reveal the observant and innovative nature of the people who produced them.” Afghan “war rugs” gained international attention following the Soviet invasion of 1979 when millions of refugees fled to neighboring Pakistan and Iran. Join us for a special version of this traveling show including pieces from the MOIFA collection.

1:00 pm -  Talk by curator Annemarie Sawkins

2:00 pm - Refreshments provided by the Women’s Board.

2:00 - 4:00 p.m. - Hands-on weaving activity for all ages 

Image: Rug with Map of Afghanistan, Unidentified artist;Knotted wool, Baghlan (Afghanistan), Acquired in Peshawar (Pakistan), 1998. Credit: Image courtesy of Annemarie Sawkins and Enrico Mascelloni

“The exhibition made its debut at the Villa Terrace Decorative Art Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and has been traveling throughout the United States. The version opening at MOIFA is supplemented with items from the museum’s permanent collection, including older carpets from the region.

This unique subset of handwoven rugs can teach us about the innovative nature of rug design and production, as well as the long history of foreign involvement in Afghanistan. Rug producers, provoked by decades of traders and invaders in the country, adapted traditional motifs and compositions, translating them into depictions of world maps, tourist sites, weapons, and military figures. Such war rugs have proven popular among occupying military personnel, journalists, foreign aid workers, international collectors, and contemporary art curators.

Over the years, rug makers have continued to update popular imagery and themes to reflect current events, changing technologies, and the tastes of potential buyers. The emergence of war-related imagery in Afghan rug design has clearly aided the economic survival of area weavers and displaced craftspeople through years of armed conflict and cultural disruption. What war rugs mean to individual weavers is less understood. Are war rugs a celebration of modernity or a rejection of war? Are they a witness to shared trauma or a commercialization of violence? Are they testaments to ingenuity and a spirit of survival? Perhaps they are all of these things at once.” Explore more pieces from the exhibit

About the Museum of International Folk Art: http://www.internationalfolkart.org/

Founded in 1953 by Florence Dibell Bartlett, the Museum of International Folk Art’s mission is to foster understanding of the traditional arts to illuminate human creativity and shape a humane world. The museum holds the world’s largest international folk art collection of more than 150,000 objects from six continents and over 150 nations, representing a broad range of global artists whose artistic expressions make Santa Fe an international crossroads of culture. For many visitors, fascination with folk art begins upon seeing the whimsical toys and traditional objects within the Girard Collection. For others, the international textiles, ceramics, carvings and other cultural treasures in the Neutrogena Collection provide the allure.  The museum’s historic and contemporary Latino and Hispano folk art collections, spanning the Spanish Colonial period to modern-day New Mexico, reflect how artists respond to their time and place in ways both delightful and sobering. In 2010, the museum opened the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience, where exhibitions encourage visitors to exchange ideas on complex issues of human rights and social justice.

 706 Camino Lejo, on Museum Hill in Santa Fe, NM 87505. (505) 476-1200.

Hours: 10 am to 5 pm daily, May through October; closed Mondays November through April, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. First Sunday of Every Month is free to NM Residents.

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Public Reception with artist gallery talks
Lectures and Talks Exhibition Opening

Public Reception with artist gallery talks

January 25, 2020
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Meet the artists! Join MOIFA in celebrating recent collaborations with local artists as part of the ongoing museum exhibition Community Through Making in the Gallery of Conscience:

Eliza Naranjo Morse and the 1st and 4th grade Cultural Arts classes at the Kha’p’o Community School

Inspired by the work of international artists who use recycled materials, the students spent the fall semester creating the many weavings, sculptures and digital artworks that will be on display in the gallery.

 Alas de Agua Art collective and Three Sisters Collective

In July, members of two local collectives joined with founders of Peruvian art collective, Amapolay, to create a public mural on the south side of Santa Fe. Titled Fronteras y Semillas/ Borders and Seeds, the mural explores the deep connections across the Americas. The mural is located on Avenida Contenta on the corner of Monte Verde Place. At the museum, see images of the mural and videos of it being painted.

Community Through Making now on exhibit through May 3, 2020

Community through Making From Peru to New Mexico January 6, 2019 - May 3, 2020

Community through Making brings together local and Peruvian artists to explore how art shapes healthy and vibrant communities. The installation is a conversation across borders, highlighting three collaborative projects that paired local artists and artists from Peru for 10-day residencies in conjunction with the exhibition Crafting Memory: The Art of Community in Peru. This exhibition in the Gallery of Conscience experiments with community curation, filling the gallery with video, stories, and artworks as created and told by museum program participants over the course of the spring and summer of 2018.

About the Museum of International Folk Art: http://www.internationalfolkart.org/

Founded in 1953 by Florence Dibell Bartlett, the Museum of International Folk Art’s mission is to foster understanding of the traditional arts to illuminate human creativity and shape a humane world. The museum holds the world’s largest international folk art collection of more than 150,000 objects from six continents and over 150 nations, representing a broad range of global artists whose artistic expressions make Santa Fe an international crossroads of culture. For many visitors, fascination with folk art begins upon seeing the whimsical toys and traditional objects within the Girard Collection. For others, the international textiles, ceramics, carvings and other cultural treasures in the Neutrogena Collection provide the allure.  The museum’s historic and contemporary Latino and Hispano folk art collections, spanning the Spanish Colonial period to modern-day New Mexico, reflect how artists respond to their time and place in ways both delightful and sobering. In 2010, the museum opened the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience, where exhibitions encourage visitors to exchange ideas on complex issues of human rights and social justice.

 706 Camino Lejo, on Museum Hill in Santa Fe, NM 87505. (505) 476-1200.

Hours: 10 am to 5 pm daily, May through October; closed Mondays November through April, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

First Sunday of Every Month is free to NM Residents.

16 and under always FREE

NM Seniors FREE on Wednesdays

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Folk Art Afternoons at the Libraries
Family Workshop

Folk Art Afternoons at the Libraries

January 28, 2020
3:30 PM - 4:30 PM

At Southside Library

January 28 - Molas- fabric panels

Join us for free folk art family programs! Learn about folk art and cultures around the world through hands-on art making. Children must be accompanied by an adult.

All events take place from 3:30-4:30pm at the Santa Fe Southside Library.

Produced In Partnership with Museum of International Folk Art and Santa Fe Public Library. For more information, please contact Kemely Gomez at 505-476-1215.

Next month at the Southside Library join us for

February 25 – Tile Mosaics

About the Museum of International Folk Art: http://www.internationalfolkart.org/

Founded in 1953 by Florence Dibell Bartlett, the Museum of International Folk Art’s mission is to foster understanding of the traditional arts to illuminate human creativity and shape a humane world. The museum holds the world’s largest international folk art collection of more than 150,000 objects from six continents and over 150 nations, representing a broad range of global artists whose artistic expressions make Santa Fe an international crossroads of culture. For many visitors, fascination with folk art begins upon seeing the whimsical toys and traditional objects within the Girard Collection. For others, the international textiles, ceramics, carvings and other cultural treasures in the Neutrogena Collection provide the allure.  The museum’s historic and contemporary Latino and Hispano folk art collections, spanning the Spanish Colonial period to modern-day New Mexico, reflect how artists respond to their time and place in ways both delightful and sobering. In 2010, the museum opened the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience, where exhibitions encourage visitors to exchange ideas on complex issues of human rights and social justice.

 706 Camino Lejo, on Museum Hill in Santa Fe, NM 87505. (505) 476-1200.

Hours: 10 am to 5 pm daily, May through October; closed Mondays November through April, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

First Sunday of Every Month is free to NM Residents.

16 and under always FREE

NM Seniors FREE on Wednesdays

+ Read More