Events for Nov. 2024

Director’s Statement: “When Russia launched its full scale invasion on Ukraine in 2022, I felt I could not stay uninvolved. I bought a van on the third day of the war and started transporting refugees from the Polish border. Within a week, I bought another two vans and organized other buses to transport people arriving at the border crossing. It was not long before I was driving in Ukraine, bringing families of friends from Lviv, Kyiv, Cherkasy and other Ukrainian cities to the Polish border. Soon, I was getting calls every day from people asking me to transport their family members. I also started working with international aid organizations helping with evacuating underprivileged people: foreigners, pregnant surrogate mothers and people with disabilities. 

During the first wave of refugees, I barely slept; the constant influx of people and phone calls gave me the impression that every hour counted. That’s when I realized I should be driving with a second driver, and this is how the idea of In the Rearview was born. A documentary that would be subordinate to the evacuations, where the cinematography would be performed inside a car by a cameraman filming during the day, and replacing me as a driver during the night. In the Rearview approaches its story without any post-factum commentary or layer of analysis; the intimate space of the van establishes room for frank conversations between driver and passengers about life, dreams, anxieties, plans and expectations.”

In the Rearview has received multiple international accolades including being shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. 

We are grateful to the International Folk Art Foundation, Friends of Folk Art, and donors to the Museum of New Mexico Exhibition Development Fund, including Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn, Gwenn and Eivind Djupedal, Rosalind Doherty, Barbara Forslund, David Vogel and Larry Fulton, The Gale Family Foundation, and TOKo Santa Fe for their support of Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine and its related programming.

FOFA is seeking folk art donations of gently used textiles, clothing, ceramics, masks, wood carvings, paintings, sculpture, jewelry, and folk art décor items to be sold at the 2025 Folk Art Flea. If you have folk, tribal, fine art, decorative art, clothing with an ethnic or folk art look, or art books that you are ready to recycle to other art lovers then please join us for our spring donation days.  All folk art donations are tax deductible. Anyone can donate!  If you have friends who are cleaning out, downsizing, or holding an estate sale, please let them know about this special opportunity to make a difference at one of Santa Fe’s most celebrated institutions, the Museum of International Folk Art, by recycling their art items to the Folk Art Flea.

BRING YOUR FOLK ART DONATIONS TO FOFA’S FALL DONATION DAYS:

Saturday, November 9, from10 am to 2 pm

Drive to the back of the Museum of International Folk Art parking lot and look for the storage pods.  WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THEN!

FOFA IS NOW ACCEPTING DONATIONS YEAR-ROUND.

If you are unable to make one of the donation days, call 505.476.1201 to arrange pick-up or drop off information.

Ntombfuthi (Magwaza) Sibiya was raised in KwaNongoma in the rural northern region of KwaZulu-Natal and moved to Isiyanda in 1992. Anamaria Dlamini first exposed Ntombifuthi to hard-wire weaving and was kind enough to teach her. Ntombifuthi has been crafting her unique, abstract voice since she first encountered a geometric pattern that resonated with traditional beadwork from her home of KwaNongoma. Since that first inspiration, her designs have morphed organically, developing in her mind serendipitously. Ntombifuthi’s late husband was also supportive and assisted in concept design. Ntombifuthi’s work is collected in many local South African museums including the Phansi Museum and KwaMuhle Museum Collection. She sells her works at the African Art Centre, Zenzulu, and to private clients.

Bongeleni Mkhize was born in Greytown, South Africa but later moved to Siyanda with her mother Jaheni Mkhize, who made her mark in the legacy soft-wire telephone wire weaving. Taught by her mother, Bongeleni started selling her weavings in 1997 and she continues to build on her popular stich, exploring it further and moving her work in different directions. Bongeleni is teaching her son, Andile, ensuring her family’s legacy will be passed on to the next generation. Bongeleni sells her work at Zenzulu and to private collectors.

Dr. Thokozani Mhlambi is a musician and cultural thinker who has a strong sense of community and how the local and global connect. Building artistic visions using an internationalist methodology, Mhlambi uses his art and exhibitions in order to convey African stories and philosophies. He has been a visiting artist at Cite Internationale Des Arts in Paris and at universities in Germany, Finland, and Brazil. Mhlambi recently returned from an Artist Fellowship at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, where he was developing new work using ancient Zulu idioms.

Dr. Elizabeth Perrill is a professor of art histories at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The author of two monographs, Zulu Pottery (2012) and Burnished: Zulu Ceramics Between Urban and Rural South Africa (2022), Perrill has been working in South Africa, and specifically KwaZulu-Natal province since 2004, where she is currently leading a Modern Endangered Archives Project grant sponsored through the UCLA Libraries  and Arcadia, a London-based charitable foundation. 

Muziwandile Gigaba is a South African artist working across art disciplines, including ceramics, printmaking, and sculpture. He is a community curator and Indigenous knowledge expert for iNgqikithi yokuPhica, and an Art Entrepreneurship and Ceramics Lecturer at the Nelson Mandela University. He has participated in several international art residencies and his work is collected by local and international museums.

iNgqikithi yokuPhica / Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa features historical items alongside contemporary works of art, demonstrating individual and community-based ways of making and knowing. Curated in consultation with Indigenous Knowledge experts in broader Nguni and specific Zulu cultures, this exhibition sheds new light on this artistic medium, highlighting the experiences of the artists themselves through videos featuring interviews and the process of creating wirework.

The first major exhibition of telephone wire art in any North American museum, Weaving Meanings features a significant collection assembled and generously donated by David Arment and Jim Rimelspach, the David Arment Southern African Collection, IFAF Collection, Museum of International Folk Art. The exhibition is guest curated by Dr. Elizabeth Perrill in collaboration with community curator and lead Indigenous knowledge expert Muziwandile Gigaba.

iNgqikithi yokuPhica Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa is supported by New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, the International Folk Art Foundation, and Friends of Folk Art, with lead support from David Arment and Jim Rimelspach. Additional major support comes from Courtney and Scott Taylor, a grant from the William H. and Mattie Wattis Harris Foundation, and the generosity of donors to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation’s Exhibition Development Fund, including the Wilson Foundation (in honor of David Arment and the Telephone Wire Basket project); Joan and Steve Grady; and Kelly and Ginger Hardage. 

Film Synopsis: Pairing compositions that capture the unsettled aftermath of invasion with intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families back home, this film starkly contrasts Ukrainian’s everyday reality with Russia’s brutal propaganda machine, highlighting the callous disregard for civilian lives.

Director’s Statement: “When the Russian full-scale invasion started, I was working in Ukraine as a local producer with Al Jazeera English. This work allowed me to access many different Ukrainian regions where I witnessed Russian war crimes. After work in the evenings, I developed a habit of listening to the ‘intercepts’: intercepted phone calls of Russian soldiers in Ukraine calling their families back home, obtained and publicly released by Ukraine’s security services. The discrepancy between the brutal reality that I was living during the day and the things I was hearing at night was shocking. The most painful thing to accept was: Why do humans do such inhumane things? This question brought me to the film which is based on a simple juxtaposition of two realities. I was trying to understand the full complexity of the ‘Russian order’ so as to comprehend the kind of reasoning that sits behind the invasion.” 

“Terrific... An austere and harrowing chronicle of life, death and indifference… One of the strongest movies in [New Directors/New Films].” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times 

“Intercepted offers a spare psychological portrait of soldiers at war. Gleaned directly from their conversations, this is an honest depiction of how empathy disappears and malice takes over.” – Murtada Elfadl, Variety

This screening is presented as part of our ongoing programming for Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine. 

We are grateful to the International Folk Art Foundation, Friends of Folk Art, and donors to the Museum of New Mexico Exhibition Development Fund, including Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn, Gwenn and Eivind Djupedal, Rosalind Doherty, Barbara Forslund, David Vogel and Larry Fulton, The Gale Family Foundation, and TOKo Santa Fe for their support of Amidst Cries from the Rubble: Art of Loss and Resilience from Ukraine and its related programming.