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Take Another Look:
"Appreciation and Appropriation in Public Art: Awareness + Vulnerability + Resilience"
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Join us for the first of 3 episodes about Appreciation + Appropriation in Public Arts in New Mexico. During this set of episodes, joni will be talking with public art staff, city staff [from other departments], consultants, community members, and artists.
In this episode, we will begin this 3-episode conversation by focusing on the terms Awareness + Vulnerability + Resilience and the work that the City of Albuquerque and the Public Art Urban Enhancement Division is doing to support and empower all artists in our community.
Guests for episode 20 are: Elsa Menendez, Deputy Director of Arts & Culture; Noel Begay, Associate Public Art Project Coordinator; and Dillon Shije, Deputy Director of Office of Equity and Inclusion.
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Elsa Menendez is the Deputy Director of the City of Albuquerque Department of Arts and Culture and a core trainer for Sonderworx/DAC for the Albuquerque Community Safety Department. Training all incoming ACS first responder behavioral health teams, this work incorporates conflict management, communication tools, and techniques for building a healthy, inclusive organizational culture while exploring active listening, the neurobiology of safety and threat, and bias awareness.
Elsa has spent more than 35 years working in theatre around the world as writer, director, producer and performer including serving as an Artistic Director and Core Artist of Tricklock Company and producer/artist liaison of the Revolutions International Theatre Festival which ran for 23 years. She was co-facilitator of the Cultivating Women’s Leadership retreat through Bioneers for 6 years, and a co-founder of the Women Leading Change initiative. A certified life coach and member of the Kellogg Foundation’s Coaching for Equity and Transformation in New Mexico 2020 cohort, Elsa is a founding and ongoing board member for Biomimicry for Social Innovation.
Menendez served for three years as Field Representative on the staff of US Senator Martin Heinrich after seventeen years working at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) in various roles including six years as the Director of Performing Arts and Director of Education. She is currently studying Polyvagal Theory and a member of the Eco-Performance Institute Core, partnering with Theatre Without Borders, Arts & Climate Initiative, and The Ringling.
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Noel Begay (she/her/we) is Diné, Native New Mexican and is the Associate Public Art Project Coordinator with othe Public Art Urban Enhancement Division. Noel is Dibéłizhiní, born for Táchii’nii, her maternal grandfather is Tł’ógí and her paternal grandfather is Tábaahá. She studied art and art history, where she completed her B.F.A. in Fine Arts, with an emphasis in Printmaking and Painting, from the University of New Mexico.
She was a former studio technician/curator with both UNM & CNM, which led to teaching summer art classes specializing in printmaking on the Navajo Nation. She eventually went forward with serving as a Native American Liaison among multiple Non-Profit Indigenous Organizations (including Missing & Murdered Indigenous Persons with the U.S. Justice Department & Local Law Enforcement Agencies). She formerly served as the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association (AIANTA) Intern assisting with a national fundraising silent auction project. She volunteers with the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe with fundraising events for student scholarship monies to give to future students. She most recently provided administrative support for the City of Albuquerque in the Environmental Health Department during 2020-2022.
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Dillon Shije joined the City of Albuquerque filling a critical role in the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) as a deputy director. Dillon joined the City as a Councilman and Tribal Leader from the Pueblo of Zia and a Founding Board Member of the Pueblo Development Commission NGO. Dillon is a dedicated advocate for Indigenous rights, environmental justice, and the advancement of Native Health. He is passionate about furthering the perspectives of the Pueblo Peoples of New Mexico across global Indigenous issues.
Previous to the City of Albuquerque, Dillon worked as a State Platforms and Resolutions Committee (SPARC) Member for the Democratic Party of New Mexico, a Native American Senate Central Committee (SCC) Member, and was a Health Advisor to 20 Pueblo Sovereign Nations of New Mexico and Texas. Before his advocacy work, Dillon was a professional runner and Division I Cross Country National Champion.
Dillon is a graduate of the Leadership New Mexico’s Connect Program, ASU’s Indigenous Leadership Institute, has dual Bachelor’s degrees in History and Integrative Physiology from the University of Colorado - Boulder, and a Pre-Med Post Baccalaureate from the University of Arizona and the University of New Mexico. Additionally, Dillion is recognized as an Aspen Institute Future Climate Leader and a Schusterman Philanthropies Reality Sports Fellow.
| | Learn More About the People, Places, and Projects Discussed in Episode 20 | | |
City of Albuquerque
Office of Equity and Inclusion
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The Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) is made up of the following liaison offices in order to build working relationships and make city government more accessible to all:
The Office of Equity and Inclusion's mission is "to inspire and equip city government to make Albuquerque a national role model of racial equity and social justice.
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The Office of Equity and Inclusion has five major areas of responsibility:
- Continuing to serve, as it has since 1974 under a different department name, as a local civil and human rights advocacy resource dedicated to ensuring equal access and equitable opportunities for all people
- Dismantling systemic barriers to achieve racial, gender, health, and socio-economic equality
- Supporting immigrant, refugee and other vulnerable communities to promote public safety, quality of life and human rights
- Acknowledging the original inhabitants of our region and coordinating with tribes and native communities to cultivate equity in the lives of Native Americans living in Albuquerque
- Equipping and inspiring our city workforce to embrace the diverse cultures that make Albuquerque the best place to live
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City of Albuquerque
Department of Arts & Culture
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The Department of Arts & Culture is one of the largest departments, overseeing arts and cultural divisions including:
The mission of the Department of Arts & Culture is to enhance the quality of life of the City by celebrating Albuquerque's unique history and culture, and providing services, entertainment, programs and collections that improve literacy, economic vitality and learning in state of the art facilities that enrich City life and increase tourism to Albuquerque.
| | Public Art Urban Enhancement Division | | |
Check out Episode 14 of Take Another Look "Public Art Journeys - Stepping Up and Into Public Art" to catch up on discussions regarding centering underrepresented voices and land acknowledgements.
In March, Public Art held an Artist Summit that included a panel discussion with Noel, artist J P 제피, and Public Art Outreach Coordinator Mandolen Sanchez.
J P discussed the process of requesting permissions from tribal governments for their community-based storytelling project My Story is Golden. Noel and Mandolen shared more about their outreach on behalf of the City's Public Art Program to the Diné/Navajo Nation, visiting chapter houses and artists to share information about the program and regional calls for artists.
Sign up for the Public Art Urban Enhancement e-newsletter, follow @ABQPublicArt on social media (links below), or visit www.cabq.gov/publicart to keep up to date on the Public Art Program's events, outreach initiatives, and opportunities for artists.
| | Defining Terms and Additional Information | | |
Philosophy and Social Criticism: "The appropriating subject: Cultural appreciation, property and entitlement" (2023) by Jana Cattien and Richard John Stopford. Cattien and Stopford provide some definitions for cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation.
Cultural Appreciation is typically understood as mere exploration. Appreciation explores whatever is already there.
Cultural Appropriation is commonly defined as 'the taking of something produced by member of one culture by members of another.'
| | Kathleen Sharp's article in High Country News (April 2025) titled "The importance of Indigenous curators" highlights the lack of Indigenous peoples in the art world, specifically as curators of museums with Indigenous collections | | |
Stay tuned for our next 2 episodes in this series:
- May - Community Resilience: Reflecting on the impact to organizations and artists
- June - Moving Forward: The City and Sunport initiatives
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