Planning: Environmental and Lighting Systems, Museum of International Folk Art and the New Mexico Museum of Art

FAIN: PF-50215-11

Museum of New Mexico Foundation (Santa Fe, NM 87501-4326)
Mark Giles MacKenzie (Project Director: December 2010 to June 2016)

A planning project to explore energy-efficient strategies for the care of collections at the Museum of International Folk Art, which holds one of the largest collections of folk art in the world, and the New Mexico Museum of Art, with a collection of late 19th- and 20th-century art of the Southwest.

The Museum of International Folk Art (MOIFA) and the New Mexico Museum of Art (NMMoA) request a planning grant from the NEH Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections program to assess environmental needs and outline a plan for energy-efficient upgrades within collections areas. The proposed project involves convening an interdisciplinary team in order to determine new energy-efficient lighting strategies for MOIFA, as well as climate control systems improvements for NMMoA. The goal of this project for MOIFA will be a lighting assessment of all collections areas, with a focus on the outdated and harmful exhibit case lighting within the Girard collection exhibit. NMMoA's goal is to assess its lighting systems and to develop a plan to stabilize its environment while increasing the energy efficiency of its climate control systems. Severe relative humidity fluctuations within the original 1917 building adversely affect the building and the museum's collections.