Скачать или смотреть TEEN HOOP DANCE DEMONSTRATION LIGHTNING BOY FOUNDATION - N SWAIA INDIAN MARKET 2025

TEEN HOOP DANCE DEMONSTRATION LIGHTNING BOY FOUNDATION - N SWAIA INDIAN MARKET 2025

Edwin Feltser MC - Randy Brokeshoulder, Singer

ART IS CULTURE – CULTURE IS ART

THE WORLD’S FIRST ART MARKET.
What began in 1922 as the Southwest Indian Art Fair and Industrial Arts and Crafts Exposition, founded by Edgar Lee Hewett and Kenneth Chapman of the Museum of New Mexico, has transformed into SWAIA (Southwestern Association for Indian Arts)—a global platform dedicated to celebrating and supporting Native artists. Originally created as a means to preserve and promote Native art, Santa Fe Indian Market grew from a small indoor exhibition into the largest juried Native art show in the world, attracting over 100,000 visitors each August and generating millions in economic impact.
Under the stewardship of pioneering figures like Amelia Elizabeth White, Margaret McKittrick, and Lloyd Kiva New, Indian Market became an artist-led event, shifting from museum control to direct artist sales, ensuring economic empowerment and creative autonomy for Native artists. By the late 20th century, SWAIA expanded its mission beyond preservation to fostering innovation and contemporary Native art.
Our Mission
To bring Native arts to the World by inspiring artistic excellence, fostering education and creating meaningful partnerships

Each August, an estimated 100,000 people attend the largest juried Native American art show in the world – Southwestern Association for Indian Arts’. (SWAIA’s) annual Indian Market. This remarkable event takes place on and around the central plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and sponsors over one-thousand Native artists from more than one-hundred tribal communities in North America and Canada. Artists show their latest work and compete for awards in SWAIA’s prestigious judged art competition. Santa Fe’s Indian Market has endured for the past 100-years and today generates upwards of 160 million dollars annually in revenues for artists and the community.
Over the past century, the American Indian art world has been significantly shaped and sustained by Santa Fe’s Indian market and tourist industry. The market provides income to artists and their families while serving as a vehicle that connects Native and non-Native worlds through the interactions it fosters. Indian Market has evolved out of years of these mutually influential interactions as artists react to collectors’ demands and collectors react to artists’ works. It is through these interactions that Native artists communicate cultural histories to non-Native visitors. In this respect, Indian Market has served as a forum for shared cultural exchanges.
The vibrancy and excitement of the market can be felt by long term Market goers, as well as first time attendees. This is especially apparent at SWAIA’s Best of Show Awards Ceremony and preview reception held the Friday before Indian Market weekend. Artists bring their works to the Santa Fe Convention Center, where SWAIA volunteers receive, record, and categorize the entries for judging.
Anticipation looms as artists reveal their latest creations to the classification specialists who then place their works into numerous categories that include traditional and contemporary divisions. Artworks are then displayed on tables in preparation for the SWAIA judging process. More than a thousand examples of the finest Native-made jewelry, pottery, paintings, sculpture, photography, carvings, textiles, beadwork, and basketry are submitted to the competition.
The Best of Show awards ceremony on the Friday before market weekend, celebrates Native artists whose careers are often advanced after receiving awards. The winning artists are announced, and they speak about their work, their families, and communities, and what the award means to them. One of the classification winners is selected and awarded the grand prize, the Best in Show for Indian Market each year. This is the most highly revered award in the Native art world.
Following the Awards Ceremony, additional opportunities to view winning artworks at preview events held Friday afternoon and evening. Collectors often take notes on artworks they hope to acquire as they compete to be the first in line at an artist’s booth Saturday morning. Avid collectors have been known in some instances to sleep overnight in an artist’s booth to ensure that they will be the first in line on Saturday morning to purchase the piece they want to own.
Numerous events are held in tandem to the main event throughout Indian Market week. These include museum and art gallery openings, a Native American film festival, a trending Native fashion show, dancing, demonstrations, and other various shows and auctions. It is possible to move from one high-energy happening to another during the entire Indian Market week.