Santa Fe Teen Arts Center, Warehouse 21
1614 Paseo de PeraltaSanta FeNM87501505-989-4423505-989-1583

Program: Warehouse 21 Year Started: 1990 Focus: Multidisciplinary Arts Youth Served: 861 Ages: 13-21 Budget: $250,000 "No place to go, nothing to do," was the overall response of local youth to the Center for Contemporary Arts of Santa Fe's (CCA's) survey, conducted shortly after the public schools cut back arts programs. After surveying museum-based programs around the country, the Center's director decided it was important to move away from the short-term or consumption-based model of most museum programs to an ongoing program for young people managed by young people. One hundred youth were invited to plan and develop a teen center. CCA raised the funds and found the space, an old warehouse by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of downtown Santa Fe. The teens' "ownership" of the Center gives them a place to develop creatively in a comfortable environment. A broad range of free workshops are offered in music, dance, visual arts (including mural arts) and media arts, while ongoing theater, photography and radio programs also are available. Warehouse 21 also sponsors cultural events for community families and young people: street theater, art exhibitions, video nights, live music dances, lectures and open-mike poetry nights. The Rainbow Pilot Project targets gang members and teens at risk for delinquent activities, providing programs designed to appeal to them, such as Peace in the Streets, a lowrider car show that drew the largest audience of any event offered in recent time, and a theater group made up of former gang members. Some participants are paid stipends for producing the radio show and publishing the newspaper. "When kids walk out with a product, they are learning business; they're understanding what employment is and feel they have a name in the community,"says Ana Gallegos y Reinhardt.