Winding up a year in which it broke box office records at its Cinematheque theatre, Santa Fe's Center for Contemporary Arts is debuting work tonight from some of the city's littlest filmmakers.
A free event at CCA tonight will feature short films made by students from Agua Fria Elementary School, Gonzales Community School, and Ortiz Middle School, all in the Santa Fe Public Schools district. The kids made their movies through the Chimera program—a collaboration with Santa Fe art collective Meow Wolf that works with SFPS kids to create works of art in various media.
Other forms of art made by kids in Chimera will be on display tonight and available for purchase. Turquoise Trail, Eldorado, Wood Gormley, Nava, Acequia Madre and Atalaya elementary school kids are among the artists—their work was displayed at the recent Recycle Santa Fe show.
"The kids each built a little magical beast out of recycled materials," says CCA Administrative Manager and Chimera Director Sandra Napua.
CCA is hoping to raise at least another $1,000 for Chimera in the next 10 days.
Tonight's show, called Collective Collected, will be held at CCA's Spector Ripps Project Space. It goes from 6-9:30 and spiced pear cider and treats from Tune-Up Cafe will be on offer along with the art.
As the short film project wraps, Chimera is gearing up for a "huge" Meow Wolf exhibit that will be unveiled next spring or early summer, Napua says. The nature of the project is a secret, but if last summer's "Due Return" is any indication, it will be ambitious. Meow Wolf built a ship at CCA filled with intricate exhibits—many of them interactive—that looked like relics from an 18th century museum-laboratory hybrid. The exhibit was the site of a wedding, two opera events, and numerous music and dance performances.
Napua attributes CCA's successful year partly to the "Due Return," which drew 11,0015 visitors, some from as far away as Spain and Italy. It was the most well-attended exhibit in CCA's 32-year history. Partly as a result, CCA membership more than doubled this year, from 120 members to 286. Members get discounts on CCA films and venue rentals as well as other perks.
