Events

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

Family Mornings at Folk Art
Family

Family Mornings at Folk Art

January 7, 2024
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Join us for our FREE monthly Family Mornings at Folk Art program featuring storytime, art activity, and explorations in the galleries. *Provided with ASL Interpretation

  • Special guest Priscilla Hensley, writer and documentarian who grew up in Alaska, will join us to share stories from her childhood and Inupiaq heritage.
  • Followed by the screening of Molly of Denali at 12:30 PM

Learn more about Molly of Denali: https://www.pbs.org/parents/shows/molly/about/

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The Visceral Exhibit: Alaska Native Gut Knowledge and Perseverance
Lectures and Talks

The Visceral Exhibit: Alaska Native Gut Knowledge and Perseverance

January 11, 2024
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

Join us for a virtual talk at 12pm Mountain Time, with Dr. Ellen Carrlee, conservator at the Alaska State Museum, and Sonya Kelliher-Combs, mixed-media visual artist. Carrlee and Kelliher-Combs will discuss a trilogy of interrelated exhibitions held at the Alaska State Museum in 2023, all related to the material, historical, and cultural aspects of sea-mammal gut in Indigenous Alaska.

Register in advance at:  

https://nmculture-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMucO-vqjIjEtGX9WngjXKkDqlg-U2NVUia

ASL Interpretation is provided for this event.

Sonya Kelliher-Combs is a mixed-media visual artist of mixed descent: Iñupiaq from the Alaska North Slope community of Utqiaġvik and Athabascan from the Interior village of Nulato as well as German and Irish ancestry. Kelliher-Combs works to create opportunities to feature Indigenous voices and contemporary artwork that inform and encourage social action through visual art, community engagement, curation, and advocacy. She is one of the few Alaska Native artists practicing today whose work incorporates gut. Sonya Kelliher-Combs is a United States Artist Fellow, a Native Arts and Cultures Fellow, an Eiteljorg Fellow, a Joan Mitchell Fellow, and Rasmuson Fellow. She holds Fine Art degrees from Arizona State University and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Kelliher-Combs lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska.

Dr. Ellen Carrlee has been working with Alaskan museum collections for more than 20 years and as the conservator at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau since 2006. Her research emphasizes networks of relationships among persons both human and non-human, and her practice promotes hands-on engagement with materials alongside indigenous artists and intellectuals. Her doctoral dissertation about Yup’ik relationships of marine mammal intestine explores the reasons for both decline and resilience of gut as a culturally significant material beyond mere utilitarian explanations. Ellen Carrlee holds degrees in anthropology, art conservation, and art history from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, New York University, and the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Credit line: Detail of “Legacy: Transcend” by Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq/Athabascan), comprised of gut parkas from the Alaska State Museum collection. Part of the 2023 exhibit, “Visceral: Verity, Legacy, Identity. Alaska Native Gut Knowledge and Perseverance.” Photograph by Brian Wallace.

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Friends of Folk Art present The Parka Imperative with Suzi Jones.
Members Friends of Folk Art (FOFA)

Friends of Folk Art present The Parka Imperative with Suzi Jones.

January 14, 2024
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

FOFA, Lecture, members only

Please join us on Sunday, January 14, 2024, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. to explore the cultural dimensions of parkas and parka making and their role in cultural survival with Suzi Jones. The title of the parka exhibition now at the Museum of International Folk Art, Ghúunayúkata -- To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka, suggests the truly significant role of parkas in Indigenous Alaska life for thousands of years. Parkas, indeed, have kept people warm, dry, and alive. Yet, in our times, when manufactured clothing is readily available from local stores and from thousands of online retailers, one might wonder why many Indigenous people of Alaska and the Far North persist in making traditional parkas from the pelts of locally harvested animals, fashioning them in regional styles, using centuries’ old designs that often require hundreds of hours of sewing by hand.

Caption: Inupiaq reindeer herders from Wales, Alaska, including Kivyearzuk, Keok, Sokweena, Tautuk and Ootenna at a Reindeer Fair, Nome, AK, c. 1900. Four of the herders are wearing spotted reindeer parkas, and the other two are dressed in muskrat parkas. Photo by Lomen Bros. From the "Public Domain Media," Frank G. Carpenter Collection, Library of Congress.

This event is for FOFA members ONLY.  FOFA members will receive an invitation by email which will include all the details and the price. A single membership allows access to one ticket. A dual membership allows for two tickets.

For information on joining FOFA, a membership group of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, please click here.

For questions, please email friendsoffolkart@gmail.com

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Bridge Building with Paper & Paste Across Generations
Lectures and Talks Featured Event

Bridge Building with Paper & Paste Across Generations

January 21, 2024
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Multi media artist Cal Duran will speak about the process, the vitality, and storytelling of paper and paste examining the many layers, time, imagination, and heart that go into the art of papier mâché. 

As a Colorado native, Cal was introduced to papier mâché by his grandmother, discovering the adaptability and storytelling of this ancient art form.  Self-taught with the guidance of many community artists and leaders he began his journey building ofrendas at the Pirate Art Gallery during the early years of Dia de Los Muertos celebrations in the Denver community. Using papier mâché, clay, and mixed media, he has been invited to create hundreds of Día de los Muertos installations throughout Colorado, including the Denver Art Museum, Colorado History Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Denver Zoo, galleries, and other institutions.  He has a permanent room installation at Meow Wolf Denver honoring the animals, ancestors, and the land.  Collaborating with communities, youth, and elders, Cal has witnessed the magic of paper & paste as a medium that builds bridgesacross generations, and into communities.

ASL Interpretation is provided for this event.

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