Renesan

CCA is pleased to offer a wide variety of lifelong learning opportunities with Renesan.

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Renesan Events

Renesan – Listening to Rivers: Large-Scale Global Art and Ecology Projects

Renesan – Listening to Rivers: Large-Scale Global Art and Ecology Projects: This Renesan Presentation is 1 Session. Sunday, April 19 @ 1pm, Artist, activist, and author Basia Irland will present an illustrated talk about her large-scale international projects, including “Gathering of Waters,” which fosters dialogue and connects communities along the length of rivers, in addition to our Río Grande; “Contemplation Stations” such as the three along the Santa Fe River; and hand-carved ephemeral “Ice Book” sculptures embedded with native seeds that are floated down streams to aid riparian restoration, most recently created for SITE Santa Fe.

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Renesan – Faust: The Devil is in the Details

This Renesan Presentation is 3 sessions, beginning April 23 at 10am. One ticket covers all three sessions. The story of Faust–who sells his soul to the devil–is one of the most popular themes in literature, art, music, and cinema. The combination of the magician-philosopher, God, Satan, and a beautiful woman, and the potential for damnation or salvation, makes the story infinitely adaptable in numerous religious, philosophical, and dramatic treatments. We will discuss the historical figure of Faust (c. 1480-1540) and two of the most important and influential literary works on the Faust legend, Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus and Goethe’s Faust.

Center for Contemporary Arts

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Renesan – Birds of Santa Fe: Their Natural History & Where to Find Them

This Renesan Presentation is 1 Session. April 28 @ 10:00 am. Although many of us are familiar with a dozen or so birds that frequent our birdbaths and feeders, birders have sighted almost 200 species of birds at the Audubon Center in Santa Fe and even more in the state. Naturalist and birder Janie Chodosh returns to Renesan with her popular presentation about common birds of New Mexico, what we know about them, and where to find them. Enthusiasts can register separately for a bird walk.

Center for Contemporary Arts

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Renesan – Santa Fe Bird Walk

This Renesan Presentation is 1 Session. May 5 @ 8:30 am. It meets offsite at the Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary Naturalist and birder Janie Chodosh will lead a small group (maximum of 10) on a bird walk through the Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary–timed to coincide with the arrival of migratory birds that will join our resident species. The tour is designed for easy walking. A guideline is that participants should be able to walk a mile on flat terrain. Parking is free but limited, and carpooling is encouraged.

Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary

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Renesan – Face to Face with the 30s and 40s: American Music Comes of Age

May 14 @ 1pm – Steinway Artist Jacquelyn Helin has performed in many of the music world’s most-renowned venues and is especially well known for championing the piano works of American composers. Her Virgil Thomson recordings have garnered critical acclaim, and she was a featured artist in the PBS documentary Virgil Thomson at 90.

St. John’s United Methodist Church

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Renesan – Cultivated Connections: A Guided Garden Experience

This one session Renesan presentation meets at the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens on May 20 at 11am. Join Christie Collins, Director of Education and Interpretation at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, for a leisurely walk through the Garden that weaves together history, plant stories, and behind-the-scenes projects. Along the way, you’ll discover how the Garden has grown and changed, learn about plants that thrive in our landscape, and uncover fascinating environmental connections. This relaxed, visual, and story-rich tour is designed for curiosity, conversation, and enjoying the Garden at an easy pace.

Santa Fe Botanical Garden

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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.