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  • Recoding CripTech Opening Reception and Artist Panel & Discussion

    Recoding CripTech Opening Reception with Artist Panel & Discussion

    Curated by Vanessa Chang and Lindsey D. Felt, Recoding CripTech reimagines enshrined notions of what a body can be or do through creative technologies, and how it can move, look, or communicate. As the term “crip” reclaims the word for disability culture and recognizes disability as a cultural and political identity, so too do artists hack technologies to dismantle barriers to access. By creating new kinds of social and sensory interactions with technology, these artists portend [...]

    Free

  • Recoding CripTech: Tactile Explorations

    Recoding CripTech presents Tactile Explorations

    RSVP to this free, all ages program today! Space is limited to 12 participants  Curated by Vanessa Chang and Lindsey D. Felt, Recoding CripTech reimagines enshrined notions of what a body can be or do through creative technologies, and how it can move, look, or communicate. As the term “crip” reclaims the word for disability culture and recognizes disability as a cultural and political identity, so too do artists hack technologies to dismantle barriers to access. [...]

  • Recoding CripTech Neurodivergent Media Workshop

    Recoding CripTech presents Neurodivergent Media Workshop

    Curated by Vanessa Chang and Lindsey D. Felt, Recoding CripTech reimagines enshrined notions of what a body can be or do through creative technologies, and how it can move, look, or communicate. As the term “crip” reclaims the word for disability culture and recognizes disability as a cultural and political identity, so too do artists hack technologies to dismantle barriers to access. By creating new kinds of social and sensory interactions with technology, these artists portend [...]

    Free

  • Unbound Roots extended gallery hours

    UPDATE: Due to the growing concerns regarding COVID-19, we have postponed the Unbound Roots opening reception. In lieu of an opening reception, we will be extending gallery hours on Thursday, March 12 from 12:00–9:00pm.   This decision comes with a heavy heart as we recognize the immense labor and love that was poured into the exhibition. We invite you to visit SOMArts during regular gallery hours throughout the exhibition run of Unbound Roots. Entry to our exhibition [...]

  • Unbound Roots exhibition centers Black healing and wellness

    Unbound Roots: A Paradigm for Intentional Healing

    Curated by Alie Jones and Toshia Christal, Unbound Roots challenges the self-care industry by expanding discussions around Black wellness practices rooted in mental, spirituality and community care. Unbound Roots transcend through acceptance, pleasure, and liberation providing a safe space that encourages individual awareness, generational healing, and high vibratory engagements. This multidisciplinary exhibition affirms that healing practices are grounded in ancestral lineages, nature, and meaningful relationships that challenge dominant narratives and commodification of “wellness". By evoking the [...]

  • Malaya Tuyay at The Ramp Gallery

    SOMArts Cultural Center 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA, United States

    PRACTICING MEMORY Everything I am today is because of the memory of someone else. I am the culmination of family and community that came before me. I want to take this moment in the Ramp Gallery to celebrate the people who got me here and thank them for all they have taught me. I want to practice my own version of memory and documenting hxstories that came before me and the hxstory I am a part [...]

  • Unbound Roots presents Acceptance Digital Panel

     Unbound Roots presents Acceptance is now a virtual panel discussion and will occur at the above date and time! Join here Curated by Alie Jones and Toshia Christal, Unbound Roots challenges the self-care industry by expanding discussions around Black wellness practices rooted in mental, spirituality and community care. Unbound Roots transcend through acceptance, pleasure, and liberation providing a safe space that encourages individual awareness, generational healing, and high vibratory engagements. Acceptance Digital Panel Panelists Aïma Paule Alie [...]

  • Unbound Roots presents Pleasure Digital Artist Talks

     Unbound Roots presents Pleasure is now a virtual artist talk and will occur at the above date and time! Join here Curated by Alie Jones and Toshia Christal, Unbound Roots challenges the self-care industry by expanding discussions around Black wellness practices rooted in mental, spirituality and community care. Unbound Roots transcend through acceptance, pleasure, and liberation providing a safe space that encourages individual awareness, generational healing, and high vibratory engagements. Unbound Roots presents Pleasure Digital Artist [...]

  • Radical Realness: Drag and Queer Revolution Youth Workshop

    From Stonewall to Rupaul, drag has been central to queer life from the very beginning. As the art form establishes itself as a pop culture mainstay, how do we preserve drag’s revolutionary beginnings? Join radical performance trio Toxic Waste Face for an online crash course in drag’s lesser-known herstories as we excavate the genre’s punk rock past to envision an equally transgressive future. Set your makeup and strap into some heels, because this is what they [...]

  • Please Stand By: Virtual Summer Solstice

    SOMArts’ Please Stand By: Virtual Summer Solstice affirms that the fight for a more just and equitable future doesn’t stop when we are sheltering in place. This pandemic has revealed the systemic failures that continue to disproportionately impact communities of color. Now, we are witnessing people across the world protest for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other Black lives violently stolen by the police and white supremacy. In lieu [...]

  • King of Arms Art Ball 6

    In partnership with SOMArts, Rashaad Newsome’s semi-annual King of Arms Art Ball (KOAAB) takes the digital stage on Friday, July 10, 5pm PDT/ 8pm EDT. This one of a kind event has been bringing together a global panel of ballroom legends and emerging artists since 2013, and this year's categories are inspired by Black artists who center legacies of resilience in their creative practice. KOAAB provides a platform for up-and-coming artists and performers to explore social [...]

  • The Annual Murphy & Cadogan Art Awards Exhibition

    The Annual Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition Plan Your Visit | Meet the Artists | Virtual Gallery Experience SOMArts is proud to partner with the San Francisco Foundation to present The Annual Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition, a focused look at the future of the Bay Area visual arts, on view September 11–October 3, 2021. Made possible by the San Francisco Foundation and its donors, we’re excited to [...]

    Free
  • Murphy & Cadogan artist presentations and digital magazine launch

    Artist Presentations & Digital Magazine Launch

    Launching with a free digital magazine and artist presentations on Thursday, October 1, 7:00–8:00pm, The Annual Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Exhibition surveys new work from the 13 recipients of the competitive Jack K and Gertrude Murphy Award and the Edwin Anthony and Adalaine Boudreaux Cadogan Scholarships. The awards are designed to further the development of Bay Area MFA students and foster the exploration of their artistic potential in hybrid practice, installation, mixed media, painting, photography and [...]

    Free

  • Amor Eterno: Digital Drag

    SOMArts Online

    Now in its 21st year, SOMArts’ annual Día de Los Muertos exhibition is one of the most internationally diverse Day of the Dead celebrations in the United States. Living Legacies: Día de Los Muertos 2020 is a call to action for our responsibility to future generations. It is a call to invoke the strengths and lessons of our ancestors to survive the historic moment in which we’re currently living. This exhibition recognizes that the status [...]

  • The Black Woman is God: Reclaim, Reconfigure, Re-Remember

    The Black Woman is God Virtual Opening Reception

    Now, in its fourth iteration at SOMArts, The Black Woman is God highlights a community of Black women artists whose complex creative practices have influenced the world, but are often overlooked because of class, race, and gender discrimination. Join us in celebrating this year's exhibition with a free, virtual opening reception on Friday, November 13, 3–6pm. Yes, I want to register! Opening Remarks by Mayor London Breed, San Francisco Mayor Dr. Runoko Rashidi, Scholar, Historian, Author, [...]

  • LUSH: A SOMArts Series

    LUSH: A SOMArts Series

    LUSH: A SOMArts Series launches on Tuesday, January 19, 2021. The first of three virtual programs, this event features readings, a panel discussion, and Q&A with Juli Delgado Lopera, author of Fiebre Tropical, and Elaine Castillo, author of America is Not the Heart, two Bay Area novelists whose writing reflects diasporic and queer life in the US today, moderated by Claire Calderón. LUSH: A SOMArts Series draws inspiration from Solarpunk, a genre that imagines futures that [...]

  • CARAVANA: Mobilizing Central American Art (1984–Present) landing banner for the opening reception page

    CARAVANA: Mobilizing Central American Art (1984–Present) virtual opening reception

    ¡Vení vos! Join curators Fátima Ramírez, Mauricio Ramírez, and Josué Rojas for the virtual opening reception of CARAVANA: Mobilizing Central American Art (1984–Present) on Thursday, March 11, 6:00–8:00 PM PST! This free, all-ages program features DJ Femme Papi, performance by Grupo Folklorico Maíz, poetry by Maya Chinchilla, an artist discussion with Kiara Machado, OZI, and Dr. Oriel Maria Siu, who will also be reading her recently published book “Rebeldita the Fearless in Ogreland.” RSVp [...]

  • Lush FIlm Edition

    LUSH Film Edition

    LUSH: A SOMArts Series returns on Thursday, April 15, 7:00 PM PST with a Film Edition featuring clips and conversation centering the disruptive works of Brontez Purnell, Heather María Ács of FemmePower Productions, and Leo Herrera. Moderated by SOMArts’ Director of Events and Hard French producer Devon Nandagiri, LUSH Film Edition celebrates the multiplicity of queer histories and futures.LUSH: A SOMArts Series is a three-part series of conversations between socially-engaged artists across a variety of mediums. [...]

  • HERE 4 U: Pre–Pride Happening

    HERE 4 U: Pre-Pride Happening

    SOMArts Cultural Center 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA, United States

    After over a year of isolation, SOMArts is ready to host our first in-person event of 2021! HERE 4 U: Pre-Pride Happening transforms SOMArts’ luscious garden patio for an intimate evening of music, drag, and community on Wednesday, June 23 6-8 PM PST. A celebration of queer joy and the power of chosen family, HERE 4 U features drag performances by some of the Bay’s best queens — Nicki Jizz, Dulce de Leche, and Yves [...]

    $10 – $80

  • Sounds Like Home virtual opening reception

    Songs and tales have long been used as a tool to preserve cultural memory, reproduce cultural norms and social ethics across borders and time. Inspired by their own family lineage’s experience with migration from Greece to Turkey, Sounds like Home: Longing and Comfort through Lullabies curators Duygu and Bengü Gün uncover how lullabies can be a source of comfort when longing for home and place, challenges it's subliminal messaging that reproduces oppressive power structures and [...]

  • Sounds Like Home: The Lullaby Project Talk

    Sounds Like Home: The Lullaby Project

    Songs and tales have long been used as a tool to preserve cultural memory, reproduce cultural norms and social ethics across borders and time. Inspired by their own family lineage’s experience with migration from Greece to Turkey, Sounds like Home: Longing and Comfort through Lullabies curators Duygu and Bengü Gün uncover how lullabies can be a source of comfort when longing for home and place, challenges it's subliminal messaging that reproduces oppressive power structures and [...]

  • The Annual Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards Preview Reception and Awards Ceremony

    Due to ongoing COVID–19 safety concerns, this event is not open to the public. Please click here for gallery hours. The Annual Murphy and Cadogan Contemporary Art Awards opens on Friday, September 10, 5:30–8:30 PM PST, awards ceremony at 7:00 PM PST. This exhibition surveys new work from 16 recipients of the competitive Jack K. and Gertrude Murphy Award and the Edwin Anthony and Adalaine Boudreaux Cadogan Scholarships. Presented in partnership with San Francisco Foundation, the [...]

  • Iluminaciones: Día de Los Muertos Drag Show

    Update: This event is sold out! Performances will be streamed for free on SOMArts' Facebook and Twitch on Friday, October 29, 7:30 PM PSTAs part of our Día de Los Muertos programming, beloved queen Per Sia has curated a special night of remembrance and celebration with Iluminaciones: Dia de Los Muertos Drag Show, Friday, October 22, 7:30–9:30 PM! TicketsThis event is sold out! Performances will be streamed for free on SOMArts' Facebook and Twitch on [...]