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Causes: Arts & Culture, Cultural & Ethnic Awareness, Visual Arts
Mission: SWAIA brings native arts to the world by inspiring artistic excellence, fostering education, and creating meaningful partnerships.
Programs: The santa fe indian market is the largest exhibition of indian art in the world. The annual market promotes indian art and culture through exhibition and sales of art. Over 130,000 people attend the event annually. Indian market hosts over 1,050 native artists from 49 states and canada, including adults and youth, in the two-day weekend event.
swaia fellowship and awards programs help native artists to refine and promote excellence in their art while also promoting native cultural beliefs that influence their work. The awards program grants ribbons and cash prizes in over 100 categories of art, with the "best of show" prize being highly coveted and instrumental in forwarding careers of recipients. In 2014 more than 1000 artist entries were received for the competition for over $78,000 in award monies. The fellowship award program gives small grants to 7 adult and 2 youth native artists who have been selected through an application and jury process. The fellowship award recipients also receive educational opportunities to study with established swaia artists, promotion in swaia ads, magazine articles and press stories, and special honoring ceremonies.
winter indian market brings 150 of the best of the indian market artists to santa fe for a holiday weekend event just after thanksgiving. Special public educational programs and entertainment are geared toward expanding knowledge and exposure to native arts and culture. In 2014, over 2,500 people attended the two day event.