Building Cultural Bridges
The
City of Santa Fe Arts Commission
Santa
Fe, New Mexico
Mission
The
City of Santa Fe Arts Commission provides leadership for the
City in supporting arts and cultural affairs. In this role,
the Arts Commission recommends programs and policies that
promote artistic excellence in the community. The Arts Commission
nurtures and supports Santa Fe's unique artistic and cultural
heritage.
Cultural
Voices Initiative
Documenting
and bringing recognition to Santa Fe’s diverse artistic and
cultural traditions, and working to bring community members
together through the arts.
Community
Context
Santa
Fe has seen a rapid increase in the last decade of immigrants
from Mexico and Central America. In 1992, Santa Fe became
a host community for Tibetan refugees coming to the United
States through the Tibetan-US Resettlement Project. There
are a number of other small cultural communities which exist
in Santa Fe, and because of the artistic nature of Santa Fe,
many of these communities have a high concentration of artists.
Cultural
Voices Initiative
Santa
Fe has a rich artistic and cultural heritage. The city’s reputation
as an art and culture center has been built upon this richness.
The influx of primarily European immigrants after US annexation
added the traditions of these communities to those of Native
and long-standing Hispanic residents.
Recent decades have  brought
new residents to Santa Fe from all parts of the world and,
because of the city’s reputation as an art and culture center,
a high concentration of these new residents are artists. These
artists bring a wide array of traditional and contemporary
art forms that add further richness and diversity to Santa
Fe’s already thriving artistic and cultural arena. As well,
Santa Fe has experienced significant growth in the past decade.
Housing developments on the south and west sides, and the
businesses that serve them, have
begun to decentralize the cultur al
and social hub of Santa Fe’s downtown. Large immigrant communities
from both Mexico and Central America have taken up residence
on Santa Fe’s south side. Concern has arisen about how to
keep Santa Fe from dividing into two, disconnected communities.
The
City of Santa Fe Arts Commission’s Cultural Voices Initiative
was developed both to document and bring recognition to the
diverse artistic and cultural traditions that exist in Santa
Fe today, and to work toward finding ways to bring these various
cultures together through their arts. Cultural Voices is a
multi-year project, part of the Arts Commission’s long-range
plan, and is ‘in progress.’ Phase one of this
initiative is a fieldwork project that has identified and
documented the cultural and artistic practices of twelve cultural
groups residing in the city. Both long-standing and more recently
arrived communities have been highlighted. Questions asked
during this phase of the project include: What communities
have formed in Santa Fe? What cultural and artistic practices
and traditions are being maintained by those communities?
Where are community events and gatherings held? How are the
natural and cultural landscapes of Santa Fe shaping these
traditions and how are they, in turn, shaping Santa Fe?
 Two
events have been sponsored by the Cultural Voices Initiative.
One event, based around performance and the display of artistic
works, served as an introduction of the project and of some
of the participating artists to the wider community. The other
was a symposium held to reveal findings, which included performances
and a fifteen-minute documentary
created for the project. Over ninety interviews were conducted,
as well as documentation of cultural and artistic community
events.
Some
objectives of the Cultural Voices Initiative are:
- To
make visible artists who are not currently known to the
larger Santa Fe community.
- To
bring the southern and western parts of the city into
the web of artistic presentation, and to facilitate more
artistic presentation in neighborhood venues.
- To
make school children aware of the cultural and artistic
heritage of Santa Fe.
- To
promote dialogue between parts of the community that do
not usually interact.
- To
encourage attendance at art events, and to plan art events
that facilitate unity through appreciation of different
traditions.
Learn
more
Read
Cultural Voices in the City Different: Survey Summary Report
to learn
more about the Cultural Voices Initiative .
For further information
on future publications and events, please contact Sabrina Pratt
at the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission at 505.955.6707, or
write to artscommission(at)santafenm.gov
.
Contact
Sabrina
Pratt
City
of Santa Fe Arts Commission
P.O.
Box 909
Santa
Fe, NM 87507
505.955.6707
artscommission(at)santafenm.gov
.
Photo
Captions, top to bottom
Tibetan
thangka painter Dorjee Gyaltsen in front of one
of his paintings
Nigerian
drumming group Agalu performing at the Santa Fe International
Folk Art Market
Peruvian
gourd artist Bertha Medina demonstrating her art at the Santa
Fe International Folk Art Market
Photos,
Julien McRoberts, courtesy of Julien McRoberts
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