Albuquerque hosted a national convening of arts organizations and advocates recently at a time when federal funding for the arts has been slashed or eliminated. New Mexico offered numerous examples of how to integrate the arts into all facets of the community and the wider economy.
Attendees took field trips to pueblos, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the National Institute of Flamenco, and visited large-scale mosaics created by students. They could even hike around petroglyphs or take a tour of sites used in “Breaking Bad.”
“Being in New Mexico matters,” said Erin Harkey. “This is a place where culture is not an add-on to life, but a living daily practice, where history, community, land, and creativity are deeply intertwined.”
Harkey leads Americans for the Arts, the largest arts advocacy organization across the country. Its annual conference, AFTACON, focused on promoting arts policies on the federal, state, and local levels.
“AFTACON is not just a convening to share ideas, it is a space to practice the future together. We are here to ask harder questions, to test assumptions, to learn from one another across differences, and to strengthen the relationships that make collective action possible,” she said.
That collective action has taken center stage over the last year as the Trump Administration has pushed to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment for the Humanities. This included terminating hundreds of open and pending NEA grants.
City leaders said New Mexico’s culture is woven into everything, and won’t be eliminated by federal funding cuts. Shelle Sanchez is the director of Albuquerque’s Arts and Culture Department.
“Artists and makers here are preserving generational knowledge and experimenting with new forms and mediums,” she said. “Community organizations use creative practice to support youth development, workforce pathways, neighborhood investment, and public health and healing.”
Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller highlighted New Mexico’s history as a cultural crossroads.
“We not only preserved our past cultures, we actually live them every day, and we celebrate them, and we champion them. It's almost in every meal we eat, it's in most of the buildings we go to, and most importantly, of course, it's in our families,” he said.
He said New Mexicans show this through art.
“Art for us is survival,” he said. “Art for us is how we kept that Indigenous culture, it's how we kept that Hispanic culture, and it's how we keep it alive today.”
Arts administrator Karin Wolf traveled from Wisconsin to attend AFTACON. She said hearing such widespread support from government officials for the arts was inspiring. She also checked out the victory speech by Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Deb Haaland at Old Town Plaza.
“Before she took the stand, there was a lot of arts programming, dancing, mariachi music, you know, it was clearly a value that's celebrated in New Mexico,” she said.
Wolf also saw a pottery demonstration at Acoma Pueblo.
“We live in an increasingly technological world, and just to be there and really experience it is incredibly valuable,” she said.
Teacher Molly Hansen came from Santa Monica, California and said it was inspiring to be with other arts supporters.
“Being able to listen to other people's experiences during this time of when arts are really under threat and vulnerable nationally,” she said.
She said the conference helped her see how the arts can help solve larger problems.
“So if you use your voice to say, ‘well, I want the arts to be an important lens through which we make change and policy in my society’, then you might start to have more creative solutions that are more inclusive, that can strengthen your economy, that can give people jobs, and can ultimately lead for better wellness,” she said. “The possibilities are endless.”
Among the speakers was actor Molly Ringwald who spoke about the importance of teaching art early, and described the cuts to arts funding at her child’s school.
“And they started to do the art, where somebody just kind of came in with a cart, like they didn't have an actual room, and I thought, ‘that's not right.’ But I feel like everyone should have a chance to pursue art,” she said.
She said there are stories right now that aren’t being told.
“I fear that with the particular government that we have right now, that doesn't place any importance on art, and also is controlling media that's further taking that away. I really do feel that it's beholden on us to make sure that art stays in schools and that these stories do get told,” she said.
Next year’s AFTACON will take place in Atlanta Georgia in June.
Support for this coverage comes from the Thornburg Foundation.
