SANTA FE – The Santa Fe Arts Commission is turning into the city’s Arts and Culture Department.
The Arts Commission had previously been administered under the City’s Tourism Department. Under the proposed reorganization, Arts and Culture will become a stand-alone department.
The change will go before the governing body, which includes City Council and the mayor, on Jan. 29.
“This goes beyond changing the name of a vitally important part of city government,” Mayor Alan Webber said in a statement. “It is a recognition of how deeply rooted arts and culture are in Santa Fe’s identity.”
The new department, which will be led by Director Pauline Kanako Kamiyama, will have the ability to forge partnerships and seek funding for programming and initiatives based on recommendations of the “Culture Connects: Santa Fe” roadmap developed with community input.
One of the many recommendations of “Culture Connects” was the establishment of a department focused on culture that would be under the supervision of the city manager rather than the Tourism Department.
The department’s responsibilities include recommending policies and programs that develop and promote artistic excellence through its cultural investment funding grant programs, art in public places, community art gallery, Mayor’s Art Awards, poet laureate, city historian, youth programs and Culture Connections.
The city also announced that Alex Hanna, a marketing and brand consultant who runs Invisible City Designs, has been appointed Arts Commission chair. The nine-member Arts Commission will continue to advocate on behalf of the new department.
