Lindsay Taylor (she, her, hers)
Engagement and Communications Director 505.465.5207 (texts or calls). Access our Press Kit.
Creative Santa Fe Emerges From Dormancy with a Renewed Focus
November 9, 2021
The Board of Directors of Creative Santa Fe is pleased to announce a new team for the organization, led by Executive Director Sorakamol (pronounced so-RAH-ka-mohn) Annette Prapasiri. After a year of dormancy and reflection, the organization has expanded its mission to leverage creativity and design to build a more vibrant, resilient, and inclusive community. Read more here.
Past Articles
Santa Fe New Mexican
Creative Santa Fe returns from hiatus with new team and expanded mission
by Teya Vitu November 9, 2021
Part of
Creative Santa Fe, a local nonprofit focused on finding solutions to big problems in the community through collaboration, is set to relaunch Tuesday after a yearlong dormancy.
Creative Santa Fe, the local nonprofit that brought community entities together to deal with “intractable questions” on issues that spanned both the local and international stage, could not solve its own dilemma with social distancing and no mass gatherings.
The organization announced Wednesday it will reach inactive status Nov. 1.
“This project is going to be the first affordable, low-wage housing in the state that is focused on people who have a creative pursuit,” Werwath said. “It’s a giant statement in how we can lead neighborhood development in affordable housing. Hopefully, it becomes a nexus for the creative community.”
SANTA FE, NM — For those of you who like the idea of a music and art festival but don’t like crowds or being hot or wearing flower crowns, I’m with you, and I have good news: on Friday, May 8 at 8pm (Mountain Time), you can tune in to a digital arts festival showcasing some of New Mexico’s best creative talent, without even leaving your couch. Virtual LemonAid is not only a way to celebrate the diverse and accomplished art community of New Mexico, but a benefit for COVID-19 relief.
And though some of those names are certainly huge and exciting, it's extra cool organizers included such a focus on New Mexico acts.
"When you're just chasing the biggest names for maximum viewership, it's a different set of goals than saying let's find a way to share with the world what is so incredible about [New Mexico]," Bauer explains. "I think this program does a little bit of that."
New Mexicans show off creativity during Stay-At-Home order
by Brady Wakayama April 8, 2020
Part of
The non-profit organization “Creative Santa Fe” just started a campaign and profile on Instagram called “Imagination Found” that showcases the creative things people are doing as their social distance.
A proposal to build 65 apartments on Siler Road won one of two awards in the "Conceptual" category during last month's annual meeting of the American Institute of Architects-Santa Fe.
Planning for Siler Yard began in 2012 when Creative Santa Fe, an organization dedicated to “using collaboration and the power of the arts to reframe critical issues and drive positive change,” reached out to the nonprofit developer Artspace regarding the plausibility of creating an affordable living and working complex for Santa Fe artists.
The eclectic crowd of a couple hundred networked and heard dramatic recitations of housing angst. They also heard from four out-of-town disruptive housing innovators before breaking into groups for more discussion.
Katan said non-bookstore events “are great for engaging people who don’t typically go to book readings.” ... Katan’s previous professional involvement in the museum world led to an event at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, where bookstore Garcia Street Books sold books. Since Creative Trespassing is “a business book with lots of contemporary art references,” connecting with museums was always an important part of Katan’s vision.
School for Advance Research Announces Creative Thought Forum 2019-2020 “The Future of Work”
August 21, 2019
Part of
Why Things Are the Way They Are
Robert Krulwich / Presented in partnership with Creative Santa Fe / Thursday, May 28, 2020 / 6:30 P.M.
Lensic Performing Arts Center / Special pricing applies / Register at Lensic.org
Co-host of NPR's Radiolab, Robert Krulwich is one of the most original and widely listened to broadcasters in the world. His series, Radiolab, explores "big ideas" and the mysteries of science and life through visceral storytelling. In his talk, Krulwich draws from decades of experience as a special correspondent for ABC News; his regular contributions to Nightline, ABC News Tonight, and Good Morning America; and his role as host and executive editor of PBS's documentary series NOVA scienceNOW to share insights on where technology can take us and why communities trust the sources they do when it comes to information about potential futures.
KSFR News Director Tom Trowbridge speaks with Executive Director Cyndi Conn from Creative Santa Fe about the Housing The Future 2.0 Project which collects stories of those facing challenges in finding affordable housing in Santa Fe as a means of bringing light to the issue.
The Science and Security Board and the Governing Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are delighted to announce two new members, effective immediately. We welcome Robert Socolow back to the Science and Security Board and Cyndi Conn to her new role on the Bulletin’s Governing Board.
“We need to better educate—especially our voting population and our leadership—that the arts are not just an amenity, they’re a critical function of society and a part of the fabric of social, cultural, and also economic life and livelihood for our country.”
In my experience, even stalwart optimists falter during climate change discussions. But the Cli-Fi event successfully reframed end-of-the-worldism with education and solutions.
If we are going to survive as an organized civilization with arts—or perhaps at all—we are going to need to use our collective imagination and visioning on a scale that the world has never seen before. As panel moderator Cyndi Conn puts it, cli-fi allows its creators to “imagine a future that no one else has ever imagined.” And I’m betting, and believing, that we if we can imagine it, we can bring it into being.
Water shortages. Food riots. Heirloom seeds trafficked on the black market by child warriors. Is this the Earth’s dystopian future if society doesn’t seriously address issues of climate change and sustainability? Creative Santa Fe connects the arts with conservation activism in an effort to stimulate wide-ranging conversation about the topic in “Cli-Fi: Altered Futures through Film and Literature, A Disruptive Futures Dialogue.”
Organizers hope to explore how our local New Mexico resources, when combined with the arts, can address the effects of climate change and create a pathway for sustainability for years to come.
Cyndi Conn, in her capacity as Creative Santa Fe’s executive director, is “a curator of art, ideas, people, experiences.” She also serves on several
advisory boards and, among other accolades, was honored by Albuquerque Business First as one of “40 Under Forty” awardees statewide.
Best of all, in its final rendition, every apartment in the complex will be affordable. Before, about a dozen units would have been rented at market rates. Rents will be based on income, set to income levels that range between 3o percent and 60 percent of the median income. A single person making some $14,000 a year, about 30 percent of median income, would only pay $390 a month for a one bedroom unit, including utilities, for example.
SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) - An affordable housing project in Santa Fe is moving forward after receiving more than $10 million. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, the 65-unit space is being built by New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing as a living and working space of artists and other creative types.
Werwath said the so-called Arts and Creativity Center, which proponents envision as a living and working space for artists and other creative types, received preliminary notice from the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority last week that the long-discussed — and sometimes controversial — project had been awarded $10.4 million.
SANTA FE ― What if we could peer into the future of our landscape in New Mexico? What would we see, and how would that affect the actions we take today?
"Santa Fe remains supportive of this development, now known as Siler Yard: Arts+Creativity Center, and recently recommitted $2.1 million for the project, including the $1.3 million parcel of land."
“I’m glad you are going forward with this again,” City Councilor Chris Rivera told Daniel Werwath, the project’s lead developer, at the meeting. “I think this is going to be our year.”
Her talk will deliver tools and strategies for taking more creative risks, leading with more imagination, facing fears and embracing obstacles as an opportunity to accelerate growth and the ability to find inspiration where others see only limitations.
After more than 10 years of smuggling creativity into the business sector without getting busted, Tania Katan’s new book Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life is a refreshing look at how to fit creativity into the seemingly mundane.
The proposal by the New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing Corp. and other partners is envisioned as a combined live-work space for artists and other people working in the local creative industries.
“It’s really focused on the idea of people who need live-work housing,” said Daniel Werwath, chief operating officer of New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing. “Entrepreneurs. Healing artists. All types of people. Writers. Musicians.”
Santa Fe Community Foundation President and CEO WIlliam "BIll" Smith sits down for a quick chat with Cyndy Conn of Creative Santa Fe and Daniel Werwath of New Mexico Inter-Faith Housing to discuss the journey that went into the founding of the Siler Road Arts & Creativity Center.
The meeting also revisited a 2013 initiative initiated by Guadalupe area organization Creative Santa Fe, Walk [Santa Fe], which prototyped various wayfinding signage, hosted public conversations and brought in national speakers to improve Santa Fe's pedestrian resources. Specifically, the project sought to help people navigate throughout the downtown, Guadalupe and Railyard areas.
Opportunities for collaboration and community engagement in defining the future of news media in New Mexico will be explored during an upcoming discussion led by Creative Santa Fe as part of the non-profits’ “disruptive futures” dialogue.
Collisions. This isn’t just the name of a poignant virtual reality film about nuclear testing in Australia that you should see. This is what happened in Santa Fe, New Mexico at this month’s “Disruptive Futures” Santa Fe Nuclear Weapons Summit.
Rick West, president and CEO of the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, will be moderating a panel discussion on Native art and culture and it's place in international human rights policy. KSFR's Tom Trowbridge interviews West about his involvement in the upcoming panel discussion, Native Arts and Policy - Resilience and Rights
The panel entitled, Native Arts and Policy: Resilience and Rights, will recognize the increasing importance and relevance of the cultural community and art within a national and international platform. How can tribal archives, libraries, museums, and artists help in implementing international human rights standards into American law and policy? This is generationally a challenge for Indigenous institutions across the country and throughout the world.
KSFR's Tazbah McCullah speaks with Andrea Hanley, public programs manager for the Institute of American Indian Arts, about who's coming to join the panel and what the discussion hopes to accomplish.
The panel, called Native Arts and Policy-Resilience and Rights - takes place on August 18 at 3pm at MoCNA.
Creative Santa Fe, in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Network and Searchlight New Mexico, will host a public dialogue exploring the state of local news media.
This event was part of ongoing “Disruptive Futures” programming by Creative Santa Fe. In 2016, as part of this thematic work, NTI collaborated with Creative Santa Fe and partners NSquare and PopTech to host a cross-sector four-day convening of more than 40 next-generation leaders with backgrounds in the military, the sciences, technology, policy, business and the arts.
The evening's exercise is to look at housing through the lens of science fiction; to imagine Santa Fe in the year 2068 as a city where housing is plentiful and affordable. Free of some of the normal constraints of problem-solving, organizers hope to bring new voices to the conversation, and to connect the individual efforts around the community.
"A lot of the books, a lot of the movies that thought about solutions, came about years and decades before [those solutions] came to fruition," Creative Santa Fe's Cyndi Conn says as things get underway.
“How do you make an opera out of death?” Donaldson asked Sellars early in the presentation. “Death is the reason theater exists,” Sellars said. “Most theater is about how to call back people you never had a chance to meet … and ask things that couldn’t be asked at the time.”
“Nuclear Weapons in New Mexico: A Disruptive Futures Dialogue” happens Sunday, July 8, at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, featuring Peter Sellars, director and librettist of Doctor Atomic, which opens at the Santa Fe Opera on July 14.
In advance of Doctor Atomic’s opening on July 14, The Santa Fe Opera and Creative Santa Fe present “Nuclear Weapons in New Mexico: A Disruptive Futures Dialogue,” at 3 p.m. Sunday, July 8, at the Lensic Performing Arts Center
The Santa Fe Opera, in association with Creative Santa Fe, brings stage director Peter Sellars to discuss John Adams' opera Doctor Atomic, which Sellars directs this summer. Moderated by Sam Donaldson.
Say What? A new series aims to change the way we talk—and think—about serious issues
by Julia Goldberg June 27, 2018
Part of
This week, Creative Santa Fe kicks off its Disruptive Futures series, an initiative aimed—as so much seems to be lately in Santa Fe—toward pivoting the city's attention forward.
One sign of interesting things happening in this new facet of Santa Fe is the plan by Creative Santa Fe — a partner with the Santa Fe Institute in the Interplanetary Festival — to build the Siler Yard Arts + Creativity Center, incorporating 60 units of live-work rental housing, a MAKE Santa Fe workshop and commercial micro-retail space. The group hopes to break ground in 2019, with a 2020 completion date.
"Imagine if we could harness the breadth and depth of creativity in Santa Fe to apply it toward tackling systemic issues that affect our community. Imagine several individuals and organizations coming together to solve problems that affect us all. Imagine ways to leverage the cultural diversity and intellectual richness of our state to reframe critical issues and drive positive change. This is the work of Creative Santa Fe."
The forum, hosted by Create the Vote, a collaboration of 35 arts, cultural and creative organizations and businesses, drew a crowd of more than 200 to the Center for Contemporary Arts.
Two of the three candidates for mayor of Santa Fe spoke about their ideas for creating a creative economy and other issues during a candidate forum Monday night at the Center for Contemporary Arts.
“So much of Santa Fe’s promise lies in entrepreneurship, innovation and community building,” Mayor Javier Gonzales said. “This is the perfect moment for our community to be motivated and inspired by Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project.”
Wake-Up Call host Tom Trowbridge speaks with Creative Santa Fe Executive Director Cyndi Conn about the non-profit's various efforts, including the Create the Vote Santa Fe 2018 initiative and the Disruptive Futures Dialogues.
Creative Santa Fe brilliantly managed to corral many of the best minds to address the future of nuclear weapons. Gathered together were futurists from Washington, D.C., to Perth to Islamabad, a former U.S. secretary of defense, several bestselling authors, designers, scientists, filmmakers, actors and artists, all united for three days to try to find a way out of the nuclear bind the world had found itself in on the eve of the American election in 2016. And it worked beyond anyone’s expectations.
In hopes of attracting supporters for its proposed new space, the Make Santa Fe art collective’s exhibition this weekend, “MADE IN SANTA FE,” showcases what its members create in a shared workroom.
NTI and its partners, Creative Santa Fe and the NSquare Collaborative, have won the 2017 Most Significant Futures Work Award for “analyzing a significant future issue” for the 2016 Disruptive Futures: Santa Fe Nuclear Weapons Summit.
“I admire the new and fresh ways the organizers tried to approach the problem of nuclear disarmament….and visually a nuclear-free future. Use of games, team visualization, social memes, symbolism, interspersing with the public at large was interesting.”
"One of the reasons I believe in this project is it's happening at the right time in the right place," says Trey Jordan, one of the architects on ACC's design team. "It's not 'build it an they'll come.' It's 'build it because they're already there.' "
During the first minutes of the summit at Santa Fe’s historic Lensic Theater, Eric Schlosser, author of the book “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety,” asked former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry: “Right now as we sit here, given your decades of public service in this realm, how great do you think the threat of nuclear weapons is today?”
NMSA has coordinated with Creative Santa Fe, the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, and the Santa Fe Arts Commission to invite Greenville, SC, mayor Knox White to Santa Fe next Wednesday to speak on arts students’ role in urban revitalization.
Last night Creative Santa Fe unveiled preliminary designs for the Arts and Creativity Center, a live work development of artists’ affordable housing that is being planned for city-donated land on Siler Road.
“I can think of no better place to discuss rising nuclear dangers than in New Mexico given the state’s important history and contribution to the security of our country,” Perry said in a prepared statement.
Of course, Santa Fe, poised as it is between Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, rarely forgets that weapons abound. So, to this landscape where we’re still cleaning up from a form of warfare most have consigned to the history books, Creative Santa Fe, the Nuclear Threat Initiative and N Square have called thought leaders and diplomats to explore, study and discuss the topic.
Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales said that “Santa Fe’s culture is one of bringing people together, and that, combined with our role in the nuclear story and our proximity to two major national laboratories, makes our city the perfect place to host this conversation.”
“The thought leaders we are bringing to Santa Fe for this event include US senators, diplomats, nuclear weapons experts, authors, actors, filmmakers and artists,” Cyndi Conn, executive director of creative Santa Fe
Creative Santa Fe is launching an effort called “Disruptive Futures” to try to get Santa Fe seen as a place where innovative thinkers come together from around the country and world to spark ideas about solutions to some of our most knotty problems.
One of CrSF’s primary economic objectives is to shine an international spotlight on Santa Fe. - See more at: http://www.nti.org/newsroom/news/nti-and-partners-announces-santa-fe-nuclear-weapons-summit/#sthash.nIyqCp1Y.dpuf
“We want to shine a spotlight on Santa Fe and have a different type of tourist,” Conn said. “We want to establish Santa Fe as a Geneva of thought leadership. We know this is ambitious.”
“It’s a perfect place in terms of the middle of the city right where there is art, technology and work spaces. There’s so much bubbling over,” she said. “We see really an industrial, hands-on maker, creative space, while helping young artists who really want to stay in Santa Fe.”
"It's not just an affordable housing project, but it's also an economic development project, so you're not only supplying affordable housing for artists and creative people, but you're also giving them the skills and training and that leg up they need in order to be sustainable in their careers as entrepreneurs and small businesspeople," says Conn
Creative Santa Fe has been awarded a $150,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to help fund community engagement and design fees for its planned Arts + Creativity Center.
This year’s FANTASE Fest had over 3500 attendees, 90% of whom were under the age of 44. 82% of the budget went directly back into the local creative economy, and the last three festivals combined have given back approximately $92,000 to our creative workforce. Creative Santa Fe is truly finding, supporting, and promoting the young creative talent in Santa Fe through the annual FANTASE Fest
by Jennifer Levin June 19, 2015
Part of FANTASE 2015
The “expanded identity” theme, which was interpreted broadly, is intended to get people excited about Santa Fe culture outside of its historic traditions and regional aesthetic style.
The Mayor was elected a year ago with a mandate to prioritize youth-oriented policy to redress the graying of Santa Fe. And creative-city project development is palpably already under way in the Siler Road neighborhood which affordable housing proponents say forms one leg of a new neighborhood triangle where more rental housing should be built.
Walking is the way to discover what this global city has to offer. Creative Santa Fe made a cool walking map of a route from the Railyard Plaza to Downtown, which are intertwined with the Acequia and Rail Trails plus many streets.
The topic for a talk Wednesday night that featured a couple of high-powered speakers was introduced as “how to grow Santa Fe young,” aka, how to make a small, 400-year-old city with a tourism-based economy, an aging population and a reputation for relaxation over nightlife more hip and urban.
The Santa Fe Institute, St. John’s College, and Creative Santa Fe hosted Hsieh in Santa Fe on Wednesday to give a presentation about his Downtown Project in Las Vegas and share how collisions have helped revitalize the area.
Peer says it’s time to show off the creativity that’s “so vibrant here” and make a space to get Santa Fe “out there.” - See more at: http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-8635-i-can-be-your-fantas.html?utm_source=Santa+Fe+Loves+FANTASE%21&utm_campaign=Santa+Fe+Loves+FANTASE%21&utm_medium=email#sthash.PVYmDRFe.dpuf
The results from this study will inform any new creative space or live/work developments for Santa Fe, as well as space where arts, cultural, and creative businesses can thrive.
They may not go as far as building a yellow brick road, but people working with Creative Santa Fe plan an experiment next month with a painted path, new signs and friendly humans to help visitors find their way between the Plaza and the Railyard.
Goals for the project are set at bringing more residents, visitors and business owners into a dialogue on the needs that must be addressed in order to increase the walkability of downtown.
Urban planner Jeff Speck already believes Santa Fe is a city that is “immanently walkable.” In fact, he said, it’s one of his favorite places in America. But the downtown area and other parts of town could benefit from focusing more on getting people out of their cars and on their feet.
After spending much of the day at the park, Santa Fe artist Larry Fodor said, “Downtown Santa Fe is not just for tourists. It is also for the people that live in this incredible city. The FANTASE Festival is absolutely proof positive events can be organized that cater to our entire population—so that everyone can enjoy the underused and re-structured parts of downtown.”
The Arts + Creativity Center, envisioned as a vibrant hub where people working in creative industries gather to live, work, create, collaborate, rehearse, perform, conduct business and thrive, is closer than ever to becoming a reality.
