Artist Interviews SFAC CEI

ART, ACTIVISM & EQUITY: A RETROSPECTIVE ON SAN FRANCISCO'S CULTURAL EVOLUTION

 

10 headshotsINTERVIEWS with ARTIST and ARTS PRODUCERS

See Video of Panel

We work in many different ways on many different kinds of projects. One of the things we love to do is to create, preserve and share the archives of artists, sex workers, scholars, and the people we love and admire who have made contributions to the society we want and cherish.

Come take a deep dive into the how San Francisco’s BIPOC, Queer artists, activists and their allies, changed the cultural equity narrative from exclusion to empowerment, transforming San Francisco and the Country. This local arts history tells the untold stories of how a group of underdog outsider visionaries transformed the climate for arts funding during the 1960s through to the 1990s. 

Fighting for Cultural Equity in the arts has been a long-term strategy for creating a multiracial, democratic, sex positive and gender inclusive nation. Learn about the people that were rocking the racist and classist, homophobic funding boats, of how the San Francisco Arts Commission was pressured into creating the Cultural Equity Grants, how radical artists managed to wrangle more funding for their dance and theater pieces, art installations, performance art, and parades through protest and politics. And how venues such as Theater Rhino, African American Cultural Center, and Somarts were created and funded. 

We have interviewed arts elders, with the help of legendary grant writer Jeff Jones who was there at the forefront.

Special thanks to Sam MacGinnis for organizational help and copy editing.

Thanks to the San Francisco Public Library, and events coordinator Anissa Malady for hosting a panel where we launched this archive. This project was supported by a San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Cultural Equity Grant and a UC Santa Cruz Arts Research Institute Major Grant.

ARTIST INTERVIEWS: SFAC Cultural Equity Initiative

Greg Day
Greg Day Greg Day is an artist, activist and cultural equity advocate. The camera has been an integral part of
Guillermo Gómez-Peña
Guillermo Gómez-Peña Featured Photo at top of page: Geloy Concepción, 2023. Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle: How are you doing
Keith Hennessy
Keith Hennessy Keith Hennessy, MFA, PhD, is a frolicker, imperfectionist, and witch working in the fields of dance, performance, activism,
Marga Gomez
Marga Gomez Marga Gomez is the writer/performer of 14 solo plays which have been produced in New York at La
Rhodessa Jones photo
Rhodessa Jones Is a  dancer, theater performer, teacher, and co-artistic director of the San Francisco performance company Cultural Odyssey (with
Susan Stryker
Susan Stryker In demand as a public intellectual, Susan Stryker’s historical research, theoretical writings, media-making, activism, and academic field-building activities
Adele Prandrini
Adele Prandini Adele Prandini  has spent most of her life as a theater artist.  For ten of those years she
Lenore Chinn
Lenore Chinn Lenore Chinn was born in San Francisco and has spent her entire artistic career as a painter and
Krissy Keefer photo portrait
Krissy Keefer Krissy Keefer explores the intersection between art and social issues with fierce inventiveness and a deft comic touch.
Pam Peniston
Pamela Peniston Pamela Peniston has designed sets for approximately 20 different Bay Area theater groups and solo performing artists over
Marie Acosta photo
Marie Acosta Marie Acosta is a Latinx and Native American artist and activist who has been employed in California’s non-profit
Jeff Jones
Jeff Jones (Jeff Jones, left. Glenn Jackson, right.) Jeff Jones is a Fundraiser and Grant Writer. He was instrumental in