Mission & History

Mission

CCA celebrates the creativity of our community, through our cinema and arts, generating transformative experiences designed to ignite minds and connect people.

History

More than 40 years ago, the Center for Contemporary Arts of Santa Fe (CCA) was founded as a grassroots organization with a vision to enhance our cultural landscape and better the lives of our neighbors in Santa Fe. That vision continues to thrive today, and we embrace all the ways this mission continues to inform and grow our contribution to the vibrant cultural landscape of our unique community.

From our inception in 1979, CCA has been a staple of the Santa Fe arts and culture scene, providing transformational experiences. As one of the oldest artist-centered organizations in the American Southwest, CCA draws thousands of visitors annually for independent films, music and theater performances, exhibitions, and education/public programs.

The first art show in CCA’s gallery space was held in 1985, and has since showcased artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Goldsworthy, Jenny Holzer, James Luna, and many regionally based artists, such as interdisciplinary art collective Postcommodity, Judy Tuwaletstiwa, Tom Joyce, and more.

In 2011, CCA showcased Meow Wolf’s groundbreaking exhibition, The Due Return. The complex, fully interactive, large-scale ship and “immersive alien environment” aimed to “submerge the audience into a fully operating fictional world” and aided in the development of their Santa Fe-based permanent installation at Meow Wolf called the House of Eternal Return.

CCA has shown over 4,000 films and has brought countless filmmakers and performers to speak, enriching the movie-going experience, including Ethan Hawke, Al Pacino, Laurie Anderson, Gus Van Sant, Nagisa Oshima, Charles Burnett, Alex Cox, Jim Jarmusch, and many more.

There is no single exhibition event or film series that could illustrate the breadth of CCA’s place in cultivating and sharing exciting creative visions in Santa Fe. At its heart, the CCA is not just a center for the contemporary arts, but a center of this wonderfully creative community

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The Board of Directors for the Center for Contemporary Arts of Santa Fe (CCA) has voted to close the organization after serving the Santa Fe and northern New Mexico community on its forty-fourth year of operation. The decision was reached after careful consideration of options presented during its current strategic planning initiative.

“Closing a cherished, community organization like CCA is one of the most difficult decisions a board can make,” said David Muck, CCA Board Chair. “However, we simply couldn’t secure the level of individual donations required to achieve the high quality of programming and exhibitions envisioned by CCA’s professional staff and board of directors,” he continued.

Many nonprofits in the U.S. were hit hard by Covid and CCA is a good example. The CCA Cinema closed during Covid, and attendance was slow to resume, reflecting national downward trends in moviegoing post-Covid as reported in multiple news outlets, such as IndieWire and others. In 2023, the organization forecast the cinema to perform at only 50% of pre-Covid levels, resulting in monthly losses. Though grants and individual donations to the organization were up significantly in 2022 and 2023, they simply weren’t enough to make up the difference in the annual budget and cover both current and planned exhibitions and operations.

“This tough decision did not come lightly,” said Danyelle Means, CCA Executive Director and Head Curator. “For a nonprofit institution that operates independently of state support, the annual donations needed to sustainably continue operating was not enough, especially in the wake of challenges from pandemic closures and reduced attendance,” Means continued.

CCA did have its share of recent successes: CCA Executive Director Danyelle Means had secured a three-year grant of $100,000 per year from the Ford Foundation, with an option to renew for another three-year period. The organization was also the recipient of a $50,000 inaugural grant from Ruth Arts Foundation, as well as other granting organizations. Self-Determined, a 2022 CCA exhibition, was listed as one of the world’s Top 50 Exhibitions of 2022 by Hyperallergic magazine and CCA’s new monthly Closer Looks cinema series was a hit with film enthusiasts.

The CCA board of directors considered closing the organization in December of 2021, but voted to remain open in 2022 in hopes of a recovery post-Covid. However, despite the hard work of CCA staff and the accomplishments like the ones mentioned above, the shuttered period during which the cinema was closed proved too challenging to overcome. CCA Cinema’s final day of public operations is Thursday, April 6, and all upcoming CCA gallery exhibitions and public programs are cancelled.