Since 2021, a New Mexican curator and gallery owner has set out each year to contribute to the art district in Belen with an exhibition celebrating Pride Month. The Rainbow Walk, hosted and created by Megan Malcom-Morgan (“3M”), is not a typical Pride parade compared to those in bigger cities like Albuquerque or Santa Fe. The first annual event had about 25 to 30 participants, mostly close friends and family members, but attendance has grown to about 200 since its inception.
“We don’t have an open pride presence, really at all,” Malcolm-Morgan, who describes herself as “the town liberal,” says. “Belen itself is a small town — about 7,000 people — and it’s very, very religious. We have more churches than we do anything else.”
Although the Rainbow Walk takes place during Pride month, the event is not explicitly announced as an LGBTQ+ event, but rather an experimental art performance. Six community members each pick different rainbow-colored chalk powder and throw it in an aerial display that resembles fog or mist. Community members play in the chalk clouds until they settle, and the end result is a rainbow in the street.
“That feeling of playfulness and euphoria [is] experienced by everyone because that’s what the exhibition is supposed to do,” Malcolm-Morgan says. “It’s supposed to just make you happy and make you proud and really elicit the feelings of love and happiness. So to me that’s what it does.”
The event is family-friendly and kids are encouraged to participate because according to Malcom-Morgan, it is “like playing in art.”
Malcom-Morgan describes the Rainbow Walk as “a very ephemeral, joyful event,” but she is also well aware that not everyone in the community approves of the celebration.
“The very first year I did it, the Chamber of Commerce wouldn’t support it,” she says. “The local churches will use sidewalk chalk to write things on the sidewalk [like] ‘Marriage is between a man and a woman,’ and ‘The rainbow is God’s promise.’”
Literally speaking, she says, the art project is “just a rainbow in the street” created with chalk.
“All we do is throw [powdered] chalk in the streets, make a rainbow and people lose their minds. So that’s enough to tell me that this is the perfect place to do it.”
The entire Rainbow Walk event lasts from 12-6 p.m. on June 15 and takes place at the intersection of Becker Avenue. and Second Street. The aerial chalk display starts at 3 p.m. and lasts about 15 minutes.
Rainbow Walk
12-6 p.m. June 15
201 Becker Ave., Belen
Free