A millennial started a magazine. On its 5th anniversary, here’s how it’s going.

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When Lauren Tresp founded Southwest Contemporary in 2019, she had been publishing a Santa Fe-based arts monthly for three years, but saw a vacuum in regional culture media. Five years in, Southwest Contemporary is a rare case study for millennial-led success in print media. With a trail of accolades, an enthusiastic network of readers, and a battlehardened strategy for continued business success, Southwest’s success proves that community-driven, niche media has a strong future.

“I plunged into a highly unstable environment from the start,” says Tresp. “As traditional journalism outlets continue to cut their culture departments, I saw an urgent need to serve the arts sector with the crucial information and resources they are otherwise losing.” During the pandemic, Tresp expanded the publication’s online coverage and launched the annual New Mexico Field Guide to provide a comprehensive picture of the arts across the publication’s home state. The business has also executed a successful events strategy, including Critical Commons, an itinerant series of public conversations on the relevance of cultural criticism that just concluded its fourth iteration.

Now, the business is attracting an international readership — and regional and national awards — amid a growing wave of interest in Southwest-based artists. “Our mission is to cultivate dynamic regional conversations about contemporary culture and the creative economy,” says Tresp. “But we’re also broadcasting to the world.”

About the founder:

Lauren Tresp is the founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of Southwest Contemporary, an award-winning contemporary arts publication reaching more than 280,000 readers per year. With more than a decade of experience in the arts and publishing industries, she has become a community leader with several nonprofit board appointments, and has prior experience consulting artists and arts organizations and in arts administration. She has an MA in Humanities from the University of Chicago (’11), where she studied Medieval and Renaissance art history, and a BA in Art History and History from UCLA (’10).

About Southwest Contemporary:

Southwest Contemporary is the leading resource for contemporary arts and culture in the Southwest. Headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, since 2019, Southwest Contemporary publishes arts journalism and critical perspectives on contemporary arts and culture throughout the American West and Southwest, supports regional artists and arts organizations through its print and digital platforms, and produces events and programming to advance the creative ecosystem.

In print, Southwest Contemporary publishes a biannual magazine and the annual New Mexico Field Guide, an arts and culture guide to New Mexico. Online, southwestcontemporary.com publishes weekly art news, an event calendar, and a classifieds page that lists opportunities for the creative sector. Southwest Contemporary builds on the legacy of its predecessor, The Magazine (1992–2019).

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