MOIFA | June 2025
Image: Madeleine Wright shopping at the Folk Art Flea. Photo by Deb Davis-Livaich
The Fabulous Folk Art Flea is coming Saturday, June 7, 2025! Once again, the much beloved and anticipated Flea will be at the Santa Fe County Fairgrounds at 3229 Rodeo Road featuring hundreds of curated folk art pieces from collectors and artists around the world. The donated art benefits educational programs and exhibitions at the Museum of International Folk Art, through the Museum of New Mexico Foundation. Admission is free and members of Friends of Folk Art (FOFA) enjoy early admission to the Flea from 9 to 10 a.m. Public admission is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For information on joining FOFA, please click here. If you would like to become a sponsor of this popular community event and receive special benefits, including priority shopping on June 6, please click here. Folk Art Flea Sponsor - MNMF. For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com
Appearances Deceive: The Embroideries of Policarpio Valencia
Image: Policarpio Valencia, Embroidery, 1925. Wool, cotton. Santa Cruz, New Mexico, United States. Gift of Mary Cabot Wheelwright, gift of Historical Society of New Mexico, Museum of International Folk Art (A5.2004.1). Photo by Addison Doty.
Appearances Deceive: Embroideries by Policarpio Valencia opens on June 8, 2025 to the public. Appearances Deceive is the first retrospective of Nuevomexicano artist Policarpio Valencia (b. 1853 – d. 1931) whose embroidered textiles contemplate the serious subjects of morality and mortality with wit and whimsy. Read more here.
Sandroing: Tracing Kastom in Vanuatu
Image: Museum guide, Edgar Hinge, performs a sand-drawing story at the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta and National Museum
More than an intricate and ephemeral artform, sand drawing in Vanuatu is a storytelling tradition, a means of communication, and an important method of knowledge preservation. Performed mostly in the northern islands of this South Pacific archipelago nation, sand drawing conveys folklore, histories, genealogies, rituals, and other forms of kastom (local, traditional knowledge). Narrators illustrate a story running a single finger through loose sand, ash, or fine dirt, often in continuous movements, forming complex geometric and symbolic patterns. Sand drawing is a UNESCO-designated Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.
Sandroing: Tracing Kastom in Vanuatu will be on display in the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience, marking MOIFA’s first exhibition focused on Oceania since 1960. This exhibition is a collaboration between The Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) and the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta and National Museum (VKS). The project is an outgrowth of discussions regarding MOIFA’s ni-Vanuatu collection, the history of the collection, and a potential repatriation of kastom objects to the VKS. Together, staff from both institutions engaged in collections research and the development of the exhibition’s ideas, content, and design.
The exhibition will feature sand drawings to be created by Edgar Hinge, a sand drawing practitioner and cultural knowledge bearer who is originally from Pentecost Island. He is currently lives in Vanuatu’s capital, Port Vila, where he works as a museum educator and guide at the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta and National Museum.
This project is sponsored in part by the US Embassy in Vanuatu, the International Folk Art Foundation and Museum of New Mexico Foundation.
SITE Santa Fe Installation in Lloyd’s Treasure Chest
Image: SITE Santa Fe
The museum is proud to partner with SITE SANTA FE on their 12th International, Once Within a Time, curated by Cecilia Alemani. Zhang Xu Zhan (b. 1988, Xinzhuang, Taiwan) will transform the Museum’s Treasure Chest gallery into an immersive multimedia installation featuring paper sculptures, video, and a selection of objects from the Museum’s collection. While growing up, Zhang Xu’s family ran a store in Xinzhuang dedicated to Zhizha, the Taoist craft tradition that employs incense-laced joss paper to make funerary effigies. The artist’s work references this traditional art form while featuring his paper creations in stop-motion films and site-specific installations. Zhang Xu lives and works in Xinzhuang, Taiwan. Learn More: 12th SITE SANTA FE International: Once Within a Time
Support MOIFA
Your generosity enables the museum to continue offering these impactful exhibitions and programs. To learn more about giving options, please contact Laura Sullivan at laura@museumfoundation.org or call 505.216.0829.
Thank you for your continued support of MOIFA and helping bridge diverse cultures through the world’s folk arts.
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