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Imagine a future Santa Fe where geography isn’t a factor in our economy. It’s a place where dreams of the Zoom-boom come true, and artists of all types work with security. Maybe we’re all operating jet-packs, we’re loaded with crypto-debt and we have Metaverse microchips implanted in our brains.
For now, while the dream of a work-from-home revolution sorts itself out, local thinkers are planning ahead for the hybrid model to come. It’s one of many reasons why an upcoming series of events from local nonprofit Creative Startups dubbed Creative Experience Santa Fe carries the subtitle Defying Our Destiny: Transforming Our Creative Future—the local art scene can finally move beyond perceived borders and city limits thanks to transformations in digital opportunities, and the old ways of doing things can finally evolve. Things are changing.
“The Industrial Revolution created the 9-to-5 work culture, now we’re seeing a new revolution for the nature of work. We don’t need people in factories anymore, 9-to-5 doesn’t make sense anymore, so what is the nature of work going forward?” Shuangyi Li, director of strategic development at Creative Startups, explains. “We’re going to become content creators, forming projects and experiences. That’s where we’re seeing the larger trend. We’ve got to get out of binary parameters and change the narrative that it’s business people or creative people; it’s going to be both.”
Content creation, according to Li, isn’t just about teenagers making TikToks for momentary entertainment and fleeting dopamine hits. Rather, it’s the work needed for an ever-growing podcast industry, graphic design or rapidly emerging virtual education methodologies. Creative Startups’ nonprofit mission is getting such businesses off the ground through workshops, accelerator programs and entrepreneur classes (for cred, the org also helped a once-mysterious mega-corp called Meow Wolf get off the ground). Almost any idea, it seems, is valid, and the businesses with which Creative Startups can help can range from starting a food truck to building the next giant arts conglomerate. “Arts” can mean more than a handful of things, and social value is key for the organization, especially in guiding women and people of color into the emerging workforce.
“Imagine an art industry that’s not only traditional fine art, but something in tandem with that. People can use a virtual reality experience to put them in the shoes of someone who has Alzheimer’s, for example.” Li adds. “Meow Wolf demonstrated what [a creative business is], and it doesn’t have to be multi-million dollar ideas. It doesn’t have to push people into hustle culture, either.”
Creative Experience Santa Fe is scheduled to run Friday, March 25 through Sunday, March 27, as we can expect the Railyard to be transformed into a campus-like atmosphere bustling with attendees from all over the world. Li notes that Santa Fe is an ideal location for such an event, in large part because the creative industry already has deep roots here. Pre-pandemic, the Americans for the Arts Action Fund found that the arts were bringing $2.7 billion into New Mexico’s economy. That’s looking at arts alone, and not the ever-growing sectors and businesses giving creators a larger berth to make a living outside more traditional routes and roles.
“What we’re seeing is so much creative industry on the ground here, and we’re having a missed opportunity if we don’t brand ourselves as a capital for creators,” Li says. “We’re in this renaissance phase of creation, and Santa Fe is the third largest art market in the country. We’re a creative, cosmopolitan city yet to be discovered, and that’s why we’re building this conference campus-style. We want to present to people both inside and out that there’s a lot of stuff going on here.”
Creative Experience Santa Fe events are set to include classic lectures and fireside chats, arts explorations, panels, magicians and tarot card readings—it’s Santa Fe, after all—and scheduled speakers range from Sophia Burton, a senior business development associate at tech company/game developer Niantic (thanks for Pokémon Go, Sophia), Manish Vora of the Museum of Ice Cream and award-winning medical illustrator David Bolinsky. Some of the local names will be familiar to readers, as well, like Meow Wolf co-founder Sean Di Ianni, Exodus Ensemble creative director April Cleveland, MacGyver creator Lee Zlotoff and the insanely talented DJ and MC Raashan Ahmad.
Alice Loy and Tom Aageson founded Creative Startups in 2007 to help artists and outliers improve their career prospects. You may have heard of some of their success stories, too: 12FPS, a creative agency with offices ranging from Santa Fe to San Francisco, and the Alabama-based Mixtroz, which opens up digital networking for workplaces. Such businesses can offer artists and creators—once a sentence of constant unemployment—full time jobs or a steady series of freelancing gigs. Still, there’s a long road ahead. A 2017 impact study from New Mexico’s Department of Cultural Affairs, for example, notes the difficulty for creatives in making ends meet in an industry long held down by sporadic paying gigs.
“Most arts and culture professionals in New Mexico, regardless of ethnicity, income level or individual background, are facing [lack of personal infrastructure] on a daily basis,” the report noted. “The lack of personal infrastructure available for them at affordable rates not only makes their lives less economically secure, but it also impacts their business potential. It would be a win-win for New Mexico to help foster the conditions that allow better delivery of this infrastructure to every creative entrepreneur, regardless of location or background.”
While creatives wait for state-based economic security, nonprofits like Creative Startups are already ahead of the game. Industry won’t solve all the problems out there, but Li is sure of one thing: Artists of all stripes want to phase into a world wherein full-time employment is commonplace and freelance gigs are plentiful. Further, Li says, the conference isn’t all one thing—it’s not a collection of utopian dreams or dystopian economic terrors, but an opportunity to identify and discuss difficult questions.
Tickets are $1,500 per head, but remain calm. Scholarship-like programs are available to cover the cost for some applicants. You can apply here. And hey, if you’ve got a few spare thou collecting dust, you could always sponsor someone you know would benefit—it’s Santa Fe, and we know rich folks are reading this. Li also says there will be chances for volunteers.
“We want to bring a group of people together who are humanist, through tech and art and parameters around design,” she says, “people who champion themselves as stewards in this particular field. The world is very brittle and nothing is being put in stone.”
Buy tickets here.
Creative Experience Santa Fe: All day Friday, March 25-Sunday, March 27. $1,500. Santa Fe Railyard, Market and Alcaldesa Streets, creativestartups.org
