An Artist’s Collection of Memories, 2026. © Cedar Rose Silverado

2026 IAIA MFA in Studio Arts Thesis Exhibition Be Held 
Center for Contemporary Arts, 1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87505 

May 15–June 7, 2026 

Opening reception on May 15, 5–9 pm 

SANTA FE, NM—April 15, 2026—The Institute of American Indian Arts announces Be Held, a new exhibition featuring work by ten artists from its Studio Arts graduate program. The 2026 IAIA MFA in Studio Arts exhibition will take place at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, where the work will be on view from May 15 through June 7. Be Held is curated by Taylor Rose Payer (Turtle Mountain Anishinaabe), an adjunct professor of art history in the MFA program. The opening reception is on May 15, 5–9 pm.  

The exhibition features a breadth of media includingpainting, sculpture, installation, photography, video, and textiles. Artists include Matthew Bahe (Diné), Amanda Raquel Dorval (Nuyorican-Dominican), Ash Frantz(Makah), Chanelle Gallagher (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe), Victoria Hubbard (Mescalero Apache), SayoklaKindness-Williams (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin), Viola LeBeau (Pit River), Jimmy Lízarde Ramírez (Xicanx Two Spirit), Cedar Rose Silverado (Dene and Diné), and Ryle Yazzie (Diné). 

The artists present works developed over the past two years, created at the intersections of the ancestral, the global, and the personal. The projects engage with the title Be Held through the form of containers, archives, bodies, and that which may hold, both as useful objects and powerful metaphors. This exhibition attends to the roots and routes of these vessels through place-based materiality and their movements across constellations of culture, power, and kinship. They carry across time and space the interplay of memory, belonging, and presence. Be Held refuses individual spectacle and invites collective interdependence. “We are shaped through connection, and our shared future depends on the ways we hold one another.” 

Artists in this exhibition are candidates in the low-residency MFA in Studio Arts Class of 2026 at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Be Held presents work shaped by two years of intensive, practice-based inquiry guided by artist mentors and grounded in art historical study. Each artist enters with a lifetime of experience and brings that depth into their work while expanding and challenging their practices. 

For more information, please contact mfasa@iaia.edu 

Proposed Exhibition work by CR Silverado 2026