Farmington Museum Celebrates Lowrider Culture

Farmington Museum is hosting the Smithsonian's "Lowrider Culture in the United States" traveling exhibit through July 25, 2026. The museum added its own touches: three lowrider cars, three motorcycles and artwork inside, plus a Park and Chill car show in the parking lot with live music and food vendors. Museum director Nathan Augustine says the event brought out a broad slice of the community and highlighted the strong connection between lowrider culture and Northern New Mexico's Hispanic heritage. The museum is targeting September or October 2027 for a follow-up event during Hispanic Heritage Month. If you're a lowrider or connected to the culture, reach out to curator Michelle Zupan at the Farmington Museum to get involved.

By Tanner Waite

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Transcript

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Well, the mission of the exhibit is to introduce people to and to celebrate lowrider culture. Lowrider culture is really, really important to New Mexico, especially northern New Mexico, so we wanted to celebrate that. And it's it's a chance to see some amazing, amazing works of art in the form of cars and motorcycles and bicycles, and also art in general, all that celebrate this amazing culture that's that's really key to northern New Mexico and the Hispanic culture that's here. You're watching the Local News Network, brought to you by Dickie's Barbecue Pit and Fitness World. Today we're hosting a public opening of the Smithsonian's Lowrider Culture in the United States exhibit. That's a traveling exhibit of photographs. But we've added to that exhibit, we've added three Lowrider cars and three motorcycles in the exhibit itself. And then we also have art on the walls and bicycles out in the lobby of the museum. And on top of all that, we're having what's called a park and chill, which is basically a relaxed car show. Most car shows are competitive, and we're just kind of having a relaxed show your car off and have fun event outside. We've also got live music and food vendors and arts and crafts vendors, and just a big party outside in the in the parking lot. Well, it's it's been a big success for us. We we one of our goals as a museum is to unite the community across all different cultures and all different groups, and this has really brought a really important part of the community out here to the museum. They're sharing their love and their passion for these cars with the rest of the communities here in Farmington. We do plan on doing this again. We're scheduling tentatively at least to do this again in September and October of 2027. The Smithsonians exhibit is a one-off deal, but we plan on continuing this tradition of having lowriders in our galleries and lowrider art on our walls. I hope annually, but we'll have to see how that works. But September and October are Hispanic Heritage Month, so we're targeting that for 2027. Well, if you're a lowrider or if you know lowriders or you're connected to the lowrider culture or Hispanic culture in general, you can reach out to me at the Farmington Museum. Our curator, her name is Michelle Zupin. Either one of us can um connect people up. So it's it's been a really big celebration, and we're having a lot of fun with all with the turnout and the huge number of people that are that have come here to see this. The Lowrider Culture in the United States Smithsonian Exhibit will be featured in the Farmington Museum until July 25th, 2026. To learn more about the Farmington Museum, visit farmingtonnm.gov. And for more stories like this, visit lnn.news.