Current Exhibitions

Sandroing: Tracing Kastom in Vanuatu

June 29, 2025 - April 30, 2026

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.

Image Credit: 

Museum guide, Edgar Hinge, performs a sand-drawing story at the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta and National Museum, 2023

Sand drawing by Edgar Hinge at the Vanuatu Cultural Center and National Museum, Port Vila, Vanuatu. 2023. Photo by Felicia Katz-Harris.

12th SITE SANTA FE International: Once Within a Time

Featuring artist Zhang Xu Zhan
June 27, 2025 - January 12, 2026

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

Appearances Deceive: Embroideries by Policarpio Valencia

June 8, 2025 - March 30, 2026

Appearances Deceive: Embroideries by Policarpio Valencia Public opening on June 8, 2025 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.  

https://media.newmexicoculture.org/release/1789/retrospective-of-the

Image Credit: Textile detail, 1925. Policarpio Valencia. Santa Cruz, New Mexico. MOIFA Collection, gift of Mary Cabot Wheelright and Historical Society of New Mexico (A5.2004.1)

iNgqikithi yokuPhica / Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa

November 17, 2024 - March 6, 2026

To view the exhibition trailer, click HERE. 

The spectacular art of telephone wire weaving is the subject of iNgqikithi yokuPhica / Weaving Meanings: Telephone Wire Art from South Africa at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Foregrounding artists’ voices, Weaving Meanings shares histories of the wire medium in South Africa, from the 16th century uses as currency to the dazzling artworks wire weavers create today. From beer pot lids (izimbenge) to platters and plates, from vessels to sculptural assemblages, works in the exhibition speak to the continued development and significance of this artistic tradition, both locally in KwaZulu-Natal and to global markets and audiences.

Weaving Meanings 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.

Between the Lines: Prison Art & Advocacy

August 11, 2024 - September 2, 2025

To view previous exhibit Paño: Art From The "Inside" Out (1996), Click Here!

Between the Lines: Prison Art and Advocacy seeks to rehumanize the incarcerated through a dynamic blend of in-gallery artworks, interviews with returned citizens and allies, artmaking demonstrations, and community-co-created events, this exhibition explores human rights, recidivism, systemic oppression, rehabilitation and community empowerment.

Multiple Visions: A Common Bond

Permanent Exhibit
On long-term display

Multiple Visions: A Common Bond has been the destination for well over a million first-time and repeat visitors to the Museum of International Folk Art. First, second, third, or countless times around, we find our gaze drawn by different objects, different scenes. With more than 10,000 objects to see, this exhibition continues to enchant museum visitors, staff and patrons. Explore highlights from the GIRARD WING.