The Imagining America National Gathering is an annual convening of public scholars, artists, designers, students, and cultural organizers who are addressing the most pressing issues of our time. The gathering offers participants a three-day immersive experience in which to connect, dialogue, learn, and strategize around the ways to build new knowledge and inspire collective imagination towards transformative education and action.
Organized in partnership with New Mexico State University and a local steering committee, the 2025 IA National Gathering will be held in Las Cruces, New Mexico on October 3-5, 2025.
Join over 500 participants from the IA network and the NMSU and Paso del Norte community (a geographic and cultural area that includes the cities of Las Cruces, El Paso, and Ciudad Juarez) to engage in deep learning, collaboration, and transformative creativity on the theme of Providing Passage: Practicing The Worlds We Want. We will activate spaces across the New Mexico State University campus, in the city of Las Cruces, and at community-hosted site visits.
Marking the 25th anniversary of Imagining America, this gathering celebrates and conjures passages: of time, texts, pathways, and portals that IA has created for public and engaged scholars in the past, present, and imaginable future; and of the life-sustaining ecological, physical, intellectual, and spiritual passages that artists, organizers, and scholars provide as a way forward in the turbulent currents of our time.
The 2025 IA National Gathering invites participants to reflect on the ways we provide passage for one another, create havens for safety, and practice connective ways of being together that fortify us for the journey ahead. We especially welcome attention to how art making, creative culture, performance, storytelling, and testimonios provide passage for mutual understanding and collective liberation, and make it possible to move towards the seemingly impossible.