The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public triballand-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building (the old Post Office), a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Federal Building. The museum houses the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Art, with more than 7,000 items.
The Institute of American Indian Arts was co-founded by Lloyd Kiva New (Cherokee, 1916–2002) and Dr. George Boyce in 1962 with funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.[2] The school was founded upon the recommendation of the BIA Department of Education and the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. Three factors led to the school's founding: growing dissatisfaction with the academic program at the Santa Fe Indian School, the BIA's emerging interest in higher education, and the influence of the Southwest Indian Art Project and the Rockefeller Foundation.
IAIA began on the SFIS campus in October 1962. From 1962 to 1979, IAIA ran a high school program, and began offering college- and graduate-level art courses in 1975. In 1986, the Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development was congressionally chartered as a nonprofit organization, similar to the structure of the Smithsonian Institution, which separated the school from the BIA. It was designated a land-grant college in 1994 alongside 31 other tribal colleges.[3] In 2001, the school was accredited, including the accreditation of four year degrees. A two-year low-residency MFA in creative writing was accredited in 2013.
Today, IAIA sits on a 140-acre (57 ha) campus 12 miles (19 km) south of downtown Santa Fe and also operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, which is located in Santa Fe Plaza, as well as the Center for Lifelong Education.
In 1991 the college founded the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, now the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), in downtown Santa Fe, with a focus on contemporary intertribal Native American art, the MoCNA is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building (the old Post Office), a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[4] The museum also features the Allan Houser Sculpture Garden.
Performance by Wayne Nez Gaussoin (Picuris/Navajo) at MoCNA
IAIA MoCNA columns flanking a sculpture by Bob Haozous (Chiricahua Apache)
IAIA is a member of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which includes tribally and federally chartered institutions working to strengthen tribal nations and make a difference in the lives of American Indians and Alaska Natives. IAIA generally serves geographically isolated populations of Native Americans that have few other means of accessing education beyond the high school level.[5]
During the early 1970s, faculty member Ed Wapp, Jr.'s E-Yah-Pah-Hah Chanters toured nationally with the Hanay Geiogamah's American Indian Theatre Ensemble, a company in residence at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York City .[6] A program from this tour describes the musical ensemble as "students from the Institute of American Indian Arts at Santa Fe, N.M., and are under the direction of Ed Wapp, Jr. Their music is presented in both the traditional and contemporary American Indian forms. Songs are selected from the Plains, Eastern, Great Basin, Southwest and Northwest Coast areas of Indian Country."[7]
Notable faculty
Imogene Goodshot Arquero, Oglala Lakota beadwork artist
Louis W. Ballard, Quapaw/Cherokee composer
Gregory Cajete, Santa Clara Pueblo ethnobiologist and author
Karita Coffey, Comanche ceramist
Jon Davis, European-American poet
Lois Ellen Frank, cultural anthropologist and food historian[8]
Allan Houser, Chiricahua Apache sculptor
Charles Loloma, Hopi jeweler
Otellie Loloma, Hopi potter, sculptor, painter
Linda Lomahaftewa, Hopi/Choctaw printmaker
Larry McNeil, Tlingit/Nisga'a photographer
N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa writer
Josephine Myers-Wapp, Comanche textile artist
Wendy Ponca, Osage Nation fashion designer and textile artist
Fritz Scholder, Luiseño painter
Arthur Sze, Chinese-American poet
James Thomas Stevens, Akwesasne Mohawk poet and writer
Azalea Thorpe; an award for the fiber arts program is named in her honor[9]
Charlene Teters, Spokane painter and installation artist
Gerald Vizenor, White Earth Ojibwe writer
Will Wilson, Diné photographer
Elizabeth Woody, Navajo/Tenino (Warm Springs)/Wasco-Yakama artist and author
Melanie Yazzie, Navajo printmaker
William S. Yellow Robe, Jr., Assiniboine writer
Notable alumni
Marcus Amerman, Choctaw Nation beadwork artist
Ralph Aragon, Pueblo painter and sculptor
Katie Doane Tulugaq Avery, Iñupiaq filmmaker
Alexandra Backford, Aleut painter
Esther Belin, Diné multimedia artist and writer
Sherwin Bitsui, Navajo poet
Diane Burns, Anishinaabe/Chemehuevi poet
Jackie Larson Bread, Blackfoot beadwork artist
T.C. Cannon (Kiowa/Caddo, 1946–1978), painter and printmaker
Sherman Chaddlesone (Kiowa, 1947–2013), painter
Eddie Chuculate, Muscogee/Cherokee author and journalist
Kelly Church, Odawa/Ojibwe/Potawatomi basket maker, birchbark biter
Karita Coffey, Comanche ceramic artist
Bunky Echo-Hawk, Pawnee/Yakama painter
Anita Fields, Osage/Muskogee ceramicist
Bill Glass Jr., Cherokee Nation ceramic artist and sculptor
Gina Gray (Osage, 1954–2014), printmaker and painter
Benjamin Harjo Jr., Shawnee/Seminole painter and printmaker
Joy Harjo, Muscogee poet and jazz musician, US Poet Laureate
Allison Hedge Coke, American author
Kevin Locke, Lakota/Anishinaabe hoop dancer
Gerald McMaster, Plains Cree Siksika First Nation author, artist, and curator
Melissa Melero-Moose, Northern Paiute/Modoc mixed-media artist, curator, and cofounder of the Great Basin Native Artists
America Meredith, Cherokee Nation painter, printmaker, and curator
Dan Namingha, Hopi-Tewa painter and sculptor
Jody Naranjo, Santa Clara Pueblo potter
Jamie Okuma, Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock beadwork artist and fashion designer
Tommy Orange, Cheyenne-Arapaho best-selling novelist
Mary Gay Osceola, Seminole painter and printmaker
Chris Pappan (Kaw/Osage/Cheyenne River Lakota), ledger artist
Kevin Red Star, Crow painter
Layli Long Soldier, Oglala Lakota poet, writer, and artist.
James Thomas Stevens, Akwesasne Mohawk poet
Roxanne Swentzell, Santa Clara Pueblo ceramic artist and sculptor
Charlene Teters, Spokane painter and installation artist
Randy'L He-dow Teton, Shoshone-Bannock model for Sacajawea Gold Dollar coin
Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, Seminole/Muscogee/Diné photographer, writer, curator, and educator