Current Events
Boutique Items
Gallery
Showcasing artists in our gallery, offering unique colors and hanging options.
Contact us for more information about how to have your work shown in our gallery space!
Boutique
El Chante creates a space where local and regional artists can sell their merchandise. El Chante’s collective creates products, Homegirls Unidas and Beautiful Damage as a tool for sustainable economic development. Selection of unique art, clothing, and household items featured in our downstairs boutique. If you are out of town don’t worry! Our online store has the same selection of wonderful jewelry, apparel, and accessories available for purchase. Come back frequently since selections are always changing.
Librotraficante Library
The first Librotraficante Library was created in 2012 by Tony Diaz in Tucson, Arizona in response to a 2012 decision by the Arizona Superintendent for Public Instruction calling for the removal of books from classes that "promote the overthrow of the United States government, foster racial and class-based resentment, favor one ethnic group over another, or advocate ethnic solidarity". El Chante: Casa de Cultura partnered with Los Jardines Instituto to create a second Librotraficante library in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the first library is located at the Los Jardines Institute in the South Valley and in downtown Albuquerque. Other organizations throughout the southwest have created spaces where these books exist without them ever being taken away. El Chante in partnership with Los Jardines Institute provides free monthly creative writing and poetry workshops called Low Writing. For more information on Low Writing check out El Chante’s event calendar.
Children’s Reading Library
El Chante: Casa de Cultura partners with Los Jardines Institute by providing a children’s reading library room where anyone can bring their children to read literature, take a free children’s book home, play board games, and work on art projects. The children’s reading library and art space is dedicated to the memory of John Milne. The building where El Chante exists is in the home built by and for John Milne who was the first Superintendent of the Albuquerque Public Schools. He advocated for and implemented equity and inclusion in education in the early 1900’s.
