Field season 2026: Oaxaca dye gardens
Follow our upcoming expedition notes — planting indigo with three cooperatives.
Get notified → Est. 2008 • Santa Fe • Oaxaca • Marrakech
Where Anthropology Meets Art
AnthroArts is a living museum, gallery and research atelier. We travel to remote villages, learn from master artisans, and co-create contemporary works rooted in ancient memory — textiles, clay, masks, rituals, pigments.
★ Rated 4.9 by 2,400+ visitors • Featured in cultural biennales 2024-2026
Anthro
Arts
● Live
Culture
Arts
● Live
Culture
Now on view: Pigments of Memory — natural dyes from 4 continentsThrough Jan 2027 • Gallery 1 & 2
TEXTILES • MASKS • RITUALS • CLAY • BASKETRY • PHOTOGRAPHY • FIELD RECORDINGS • TEXTILES • MASKS • RITUALS • CLAY • BASKETRY • PHOTOGRAPHY • FIELD RECORDINGS •
About AnthroArts
We don't collect objects.
We keep relationships alive.
AnthroArts.com began as a field diary of two anthropologists hitchhiking through the Andes with a film camera and a loom. Today it is an independent cultural institution: a gallery in Santa Fe, three partner ateliers in Oaxaca and the Atlas Mountains, and a digital archive open to all.
Every piece we show is made with — not about — communities. We spend months living, eating, weaving and firing alongside artisans. We pay fair royalties, credit every hand, and return 40% of gallery sales directly to village cooperatives for schools, looms and kilns.
- ✓ Ethical co-creation: all works signed jointly by artist + artisan collective, with provenance film.
- ✓ Living archive: 18,000+ photos, songs, patterns and recipes digitized and free for source communities.
- ✓ Residency program: 24 artists per year live between the gallery and the field — from weavers to AI poets.
- ✓ Education: weekly dye labs, clay circles, language tables and kids' myth workshops.
2008Founded
46Cultures
120+Exhibitions
40%Back to makers
Collections & Exhibitions
Four worlds, one thread
From Shipibo song-cloths to Berber tattoos reimagined in neon — our permanent collection is organized not by country, but by human gestures: to cover, to carry, to remember, to transform.
To Cover • Textiles
Woven Cosmologies
120 song-cloths, wedding blankets and resistance tapestries. Ayacucho to Chiapas. Natural dyes only.
To Carry • Clay & Basket
Vessels of Memory
Black pottery, water jars, seed baskets. Each object carries a recipe, a song and a fingerprint.
To Transform • Masks & Ritual
Masks Are Portals
Carnival devils, healing masks, contemporary avatars. Try them on — in VR and in cedar wood.
Archive
18,000 Field Photographs
Digitized negatives 2008-2026. Search by motif, pigment, gesture. Free for educators and source families.
Browse stories
Now • Until Jan 2027
Pigments of Memory
Cochineal, indigo, ochre, carbon. A multisensory lab where you grind, smell and paint history.
Plan visitArtists & Keepers
Masters & troublemakers
We work with 140+ keepers of tradition and 60 contemporary artists. No hierarchy — a 78-year-old Zapotec weaver critiques a Berlin media artist, and vice versa.
Elena Ruiz
Oaxaca • Backstrap weaving, cochineal revival. 40 years at the loom.
Amazigh Collective
Atlas • Clay, tattoo motifs, sound. From granary to gallery.
Maya Quispe
Andes • Photography, song-cloth mapping. Quechua futurism.
Jonas Feld
Residency '25 • Bioplastic + basketry. Compostable vessels.
Our method
Slow research, fast imagination
Anthropology gives us humility. Art gives us courage. Together they make exhibitions you can touch, taste and argue with.
01 Listen
Live-in fieldwork
3-6 months in community, no cameras first month. Learn language basics, cook, herd, weave.
3-6 months in community, no cameras first month. Learn language basics, cook, herd, weave.
02 Co-make
Atelier exchanges
Artisans teach artists, artists teach artisans. Prototypes, failures, laughter. All filmed with consent.
Artisans teach artists, artists teach artisans. Prototypes, failures, laughter. All filmed with consent.
03 Return
Fair exhibition
Joint authorship, QR provenance, 40% royalties. Exhibition travels back to village first.
Joint authorship, QR provenance, 40% royalties. Exhibition travels back to village first.
04 Archive
Open memory
Patterns, recipes and songs digitized, translated, returned on hard drives + online.
Patterns, recipes and songs digitized, translated, returned on hard drives + online.
“They didn't study us. They stayed for fiesta, learned my mother's knots, and put my name bigger than theirs.”
— Doña Francisca, Teotitlán del Valle, weaver since 1972
— Doña Francisca, Teotitlán del Valle, weaver since 1972
Journal • Field notes • News
Latest from the field
Expedition diaries, artisan portraits, exhibition openings and essays on cultural survival. Updated weekly by our researchers and residents.
How song becomes cloth in the Andes
Shipibo patterns are sung before they are woven. An essay with audio.
Our method →Pigments of Memory: behind the show
Curator walkthrough, pigment recipes and kids' lab results.
See show →Good to know
Questions, answered
Tickets, ethics, photography, wholesale — everything visitors and partners ask us.
Where are you located and when open?
Our main gallery is at 112 Canyon Road, Santa Fe — open Tue–Sun 10am–6pm, late Fridays till 9pm. Partner ateliers in Oaxaca and Marrakech open by appointment. All addresses and maps at the Visit section below.
Are your works ethically sourced?
Yes. Every contemporary piece is co-authored with paid artisans; every historic piece has full provenance. We publish contracts, pay 40% royalties to cooperatives, and repatriate on request. No looted or undocumented objects, ever.
Can I take photos? Can I touch?
Photos without flash are welcome everywhere. Touch is encouraged in our hands-on zones — dye lab, loom corner, clay table — marked with orange hands. Historic textiles behind glass, please just look with love.
Do you buy from collectors or sell wholesale?
We sell original co-creations and limited prints directly, with certificates. We also wholesale fair-trade batches to museums shops. If you own an ethnographic object and want appraisal or donation, write to our archive team.
How can artists apply for residency?
Two open calls per year — spring and autumn. 2–3 months, housing + stipend + field travel. We prioritize duos: one contemporary artist + one tradition keeper applying together. Subscribe in Visit to get the call.
Visit • Santa Fe
Come touch
history.
112 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM • Tue–Sun 10–18 • Entry $12, kids & artisans free. Dye labs Saturdays, myth nights full moon. Groups, schools and ceremonies welcome.
Contact desk: hello [at] anthroarts.com • +1 (505) 555-0142 • @anthroarts on site boards
