New Mexico History Museum exhibition explores Santuario de Chimayó's traditions of faith

On April 12, the day before Palm Sunday, the New Mexico History Museum (NMHM) opens a new exhibition, “Chimayó: A Tradition of Faith,” focusing on the Santuario de Chimayó, whose fabled “sacred dirt” draws up to 300,000 pilgrims annually, mostly during the Christian Holy Week, with many trekking 90 miles on foot from Albuquerque or 30 miles from Santa Fe.

“All are welcome on the pilgrimage,” said Cathy Notarnicola, the exhibition’s curator. “All are united in spirit as they traverse their way across the landscape to the santuario.”

NMHM’s exhibition features a faithful re-creation of the Santuario de Chimayó’s various rooms and spaces, along with empathetic photographs by four renowned New Mexican photographers and descriptions of the pilgrimage experience as told to local historians.

For those who have made the journey previously, these installations, images and words may unlock memories or reveal commonalities with other pilgrims.

For those who have not made the journey, the exhibition gives a flavor of the Chimayó pilgrimage experience. Without having to brave the elements or push the limits of one’s own physical stamina, “Chimayó: A Tradition of Faith” turns the arduous outdoor pilgrimage into a much more leisurely indoor museum experience, while providing supplemental historical information to help those who are less intimately acquainted with the tradition understand its deep spiritual and social dimensions.

The photographer Sam Howarth made the pilgrimage to Chimayó many times himself and spent years photographing the event from an insider’s perspective. Then, in 1996, he received a New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities grant to support an expanded documentation project with the photographers Miguel Gandert, Cary Herz and Oscar Lozoya, along with the oral historians Enrique R. Lamadrid and Troy Fernández. The results of that collaborative project form the core of the photographs in NMHM’s exhibition, although Notarnicola also includes historic photographs, showing the continuity of traditions across time.

Gandert is one of the most celebrated photographers of the Southwest, whose photographic explorations of New Mexican Indo-Hispanic cultural traditions have been shown internationally, including at the Smithsonian Institution and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Each of the four photographers brings a unique point of view, which contributes a vibrant, multi-perspectival narrative.

Many of the photographs are paired with quotes from individuals describing what the pilgrimage means in their own words. Some make the journey to find inner peace or healing for themselves, while others go on behalf of loved ones.

The sanctuary was built on the site of a former hot spring, which the Tewa people considered a source of healing. Although the hot spring dried up centuries ago, the site’s reputation for healing remains as strong as ever. It seems to matter very little to the throngs of the faithful who make the journey to the santuario every year that the healing substance is no longer water but dirt, and that the dirt itself does not regenerate from the well but is trucked in from the nearby hills by priests to keep up with demand – nearly 30 tons of it per year.

While many are attracted to the site’s miraculous lore, the Catholic Church takes no official position on whether the Chimayó dirt is any holier than that found elsewhere on the planet. Then again, for some, the pilgrimage is less about physical miracles than feeling connected to a larger spiritual community.

According to one pilgrim, Ramond Jones, who is quoted in the exhibition, “To me, the miracle is the whole idea of just being able to be together with people and having everybody just be together in a spirit of prayer.”

New Mexico History Museum exhibition explores Santuario de Chimayó's traditions of faith