EATING CULTURES OPENING RECEPTION, MAY 1

Asian American Women Artist Association (AAWAA) and Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC) join forces to present the multidisciplinary art exhibition Eating Cultures, May 1–30, for the United States of Asian America Festival.

Featuring over thirty emerging and established Asian Pacific American artists from around the country, Eating Cultures is a deliciously provocative multi-disciplinary arts exhibition of artworks inspired by Asian American food and foodways. Using food as a lens, artist share stories of global migration, adaptation, entrepreneurship, and the central importance of food in Asian communities around the world. Click here to read more about the exhibition.

The opening reception will be catered in partnership with La Cocina’s Incubator Program. La Cocina is an internationally recognized nonprofit organization whose mission is to cultivate low-income food entrepreneurs as they formalize and grow their businesses.

The exhibition is funded in part by the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, APICC, the Robert J. Louie Memorial Fund, and Zellerbach Family Foundation, and is presented at SOMArts through participation in the Affordable Space Program, which provides below-market rental space, production and publicity assistance to nonprofit organizations. For more information visit our rentals page.

Artwork by Jessica Tang pictured

WORK MORE! #6 CLOSING EVENT

Mingle with the artists during the final opportunity to viewWork More! #6, which pairs drag performers with non-drag fine artists for an exhibition of collaborative installations and performances.

Hosted by LOL McFiercen (pictured), the free-to-attend closing event for Work MORE! #6 features “Fake Docent Tours” in which the artists provide you, the audience, with (completely made up) insights into the artwork you see before you.

Work MORE! #6 situates San Francisco’s avant-garde and traditional drag practices within a gallery space, re-contextualizing the artistry, aesthetics and forms that are ever-present and continually evolving in San Francisco’s nightlife venues.

The exhibition is the third Spring 2014 Commons Curatorial Residency exhibition at SOMArts, organized by residency recipient and Work MORE! creator and artistic director Mica Sigourney (VivvyAnne ForeverMORE!). Click here to read more about Work MORE! #6.

X-MEN, FEMINISM, DRAG QUEENS, AND NERDS!

Tell me about how your X-Men piece came about! What was your process from start to finish? When I first saw the call for submissions for Work MORE! 6, and that it was a gallery show instead of a theatrical production this year, I called up Diego Gomez and asked if he wanted to be my collaborator. He and I haven’t worked together before but we’ve had conversations about feminism and comics before so I knew that that should be the foundation for our collaboration. He and I came up with the “X-Factor: The Feminine Mystique” out of our common passion for the X-Men, feminism, and puns.

After our proposal was accepted, he and I spent time discussing early 60′s feminism and how to tie the movement to Mystique and how to express that in art. Diego was the person to stumble on the idea of highlighting Gloria Steinem’s infiltration of the Playboy Clubs as a particularly “Mystique-esque” action, and I was always interested in the connection of visibility and equality that are expressed both by Mystique in the movie,” X-Men: First Class” and in Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique.”

We also shared documents on Google Docs and Pinterest that were inspirational pictures, old X-Men comics, historical documents of the era, specifically 1963. It was those images I used when it came time to create graffiti stencils for the walls. I found most of my images used in the collages online, and also photocopied some of my personal collection of X-Men comics that my father collected in the 60′s and 70′s, Just as I created the collages on my own, Diego created the oil paintings on his own.

Dean Disaster is described as being “very nerdy”. “Nerd” has changed definitions over time; the nerds of the past used to truly be outcasts, but in today’s technological world, nerds hold a lot of power. What kind of “nerdy” is Dean? I have always been “nerdy”— from the time I was in elementary school and designed a robot with one of my few friends, through building my own computer for university, until today as I create cosplay for myself. I do find that I hold a lot of cache as a nerd online and I have carved out a niche for myself in social situations as a door attendant at lots of different clubs— a niche that has specific parameters for social interaction and an easy out of uncomfortable conversations (“I’m working”) that I need to relieve the social anxiety I still feel. If I had to define “what kind of nerd are you?” I’d have to say that I am a deconstructionist. I examine media in a social construct and take it apart, to put it back together in a different frame— usually feminist and/or queer.

Just like the word “nerd”, comics have evolved over the years as well. Live actions movies based on superhero comics are dominating the movie industry. At the same time, indie/alternative comics and web comics are becoming a big trend. How do you feel about this? I’m glad that comics are being translated into film, I think they’re better suited for that transition with other types of books. I am always disappointed by the movies based on novels I’ve read, I can’t help but nit-pick them apart. I’m also glad that I have a frame of reference to talk with people who otherwise would not know the fictional universes that I like to reference. Indeed, even “X-Factor: The Feminine Mystique” had some reactions based on only seeing one film or a preview, garnering questions like, “She’s the blue one, right?” It’s a place to start. Whereas if X-Men wasn’t such a popular cultural phenomenon, it wouldn’t speak to those people at all therefore losing audience at first glance. I’m also really happy where the comics industry as a whole is headed. We have more diversity in writing and production staff, more diversity of characters, and deeper plot lines with in depth examination of difficult material. I think graphic novels like “Persepolis” led the way towards the new Muslim American “Mz. Marvel” comic book series and both of their critical and financial success.

About the writer: Michelle Lagasca is currently an CCA Connects Extern at SOMArts Cultural Center. She is studying at the California College of the Arts and will graduate in the Spring with a BFA in Illustration.

For more information about internships at SOMArts, pleaseclick here.

Watermarked photos above by Cabure Bonugli, all others by Mark Adamusik

WOMANHOUSE VS. WOMENHOUSE: ICONIC FEMINIST ART UPDATED

Womenhouse, the largest collaborative artist group in the exhibition Workmore! #6, draws inspiration from feminist artists and collectives from the 1970’s and other historically rich moments.

The group is inspired by the exclusively female art exhibition & collective known as Womanhouse, organized by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro in 1972. Four decades later, Womenhouse, envisioned/organized by Lydia Brunch (Kolmel WithLove), reveals a fresh outlook on the work of Womanhouse, infusing these groundbreaking feminist works with contemporary queer and drag perspectives.

Below you will find historical photos juxtaposing the original works reprised and reinvented by some of the members of Womenhouse. Join a free performance by Womenhouse following the Art, Performance & Legitimacy Panel Discussionon Wednesday, April 16, 6–8pm.

Sue Casa & Lydia Brunch pictured, photo by Cabure Bonugli

“Loving Hair Vagina Painting,” by Sue Casa & Lydia Brunch, alludes to two Womanhouse performance pieces at once: “Loving Care” by Janine Antoni and “Vagina Painting” by Shigeko Kubota.

Sue Casa pictured, photo by Cabure Bonugli, live performance at SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, 2014

Vagina Painting, Shigeko Kubota, Live Performance at Perpetual Fluxus Festival in NY, 1965

Lydia Brunch pictured, photo by Cabure Bonugli, live performance at SOMArts Cultural Center, San Francisco, 2014

Loving Care, Janine Antoni, Live Performance at Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London, 1993

Similarly, an audience interactive piece by Sugah Betes & Mutha Chucka recalls “Leah’s Room,” an installation decorated with an antique vanity, patterned wallpaper and lace to represent the boudoir of the aging courtesan Leah from Colette’s novel Chéri. On Friday and Saturday evenings for the duration of Womanhouse Karen LeCoq performed in “Leah’s Room,” applying make-up to her face repeatedly.

Disposable Beauty: Painted Ladies & Temporary Faces, Sugah Betes & Mutha Chucka, photo by Cabure Bonugli, 2014

Leah’s Room, Karen LeCoq and Nancy Youdelman, Womanhouse, Los Angeles, 1972

While visiting Work MORE! #6, audiences can peer into a row of mirrors that reflect a made-up version of their face echoing the signature styles of notable drag queens, and exercise their own creativity while styling a coloring book image of a drag queen’s face.

Disposable Beauty: Painted Ladies & Temporary Faces, Sugah Betes & Mutha Chucka, photo by Cabure Bonugli, 2014

Another audience interactive piece, “Kitty Riot” by Coca Kahlo (Ed Hernandez) & Lil Miss Hot Mess (Harris David Harris), allows the audience to push a large button on a podium to activate a moving collage of cats. The piece humorously invokes an earlier work by Martha Rosler, a collage composed of photographs of nude women featured in Playboy.

Kitty Riot, Coca Kahlo (Ed Hernandez) & Lil Miss Hot Mess, photo by Cabure Bonugli, 2014

Body Beautiful, or Beauty Knows No Pain: Hot House, or Harem, Martha Rosler, (1966­-72)

ARTIST INTERVIEW: ILANA CRISPI

Your piece “Tenderloin Dirt Harvest” involves dirt from the Tenderloin turned into furniture and vessels, such as teacups that visitors can drink from. Since your first apartment was in the Tenderloin, what does this piece say to you personally? I wanted to investigate the significance and specificity of a particular place. I have my own memories from the neighborhood, however there is a much longer history that is located here. The identity of the neighborhood is constantly shifting, however the place, the land, the location, remains the same. I started this project by researching the history of the neighborhood and then investigating the land itself.

The land here is hard to visualize. The soil is covered. There are buildings and concrete, but not much visible natural terrain. When I lived here my own experience of the outside world was spent mostly on my fire escape, far from the ground. For this project I looked at satellite imagery of the neighborhood in search of hidden backyards and accessible slivers of soil that might be tucked into the neighborhood. I ended up finding Boedekker Park. This was a site where I once taught art classes to neighborhood kids. At that time it was mostly concrete and a very contentious neighborhood park. It is currently under construction.

I was able to get access to the site to harvest 90 gallons of soil. Much of this soil was harvested from directly under the building, now torn down, where I worked with the kids. This was a place where I spent time, but with no access to the land. I was also able to get my hands on a geological survey of this site. I discovered that much further underground there are deposits of clay. The earth from where I dug was mostly sand, evidence of the earlier sand dunes where people used to picnic. After functioning as a bucolic picnic site, it later became a series of theaters. After the 1906 earthquake and fire that followed the site was rebuilt as a skating rink and then dance hall and then dance school and then bowling alley and billiard parlor before becoming the contentious park that it is today. It is a park, but it is no longer a destination for picnics and nature.

The land holds stories. What happens on the surface changes, but the land itself stays constant. I wanted to explore the material of the land as a way of better understanding the shifting histories and people of this place. My own experiences here are a very small part of a long and incredibly diverse history of this place.

“Tenderloin Dirt Harvest” invites viewers to sit in and drink from the dirt of the Tenderloin. Visitors are specifically given tea to drink. Given the calming effects of a hot cup of tea, how does the act of drinking tea connect to your intentions with this piece? The tea provides people with a literal taste of the neighborhood. The honey is locally harvested. The Roman mint and camomile and lemon verbena and pineapple sage other herbs are all grown locally. Tenderloin grown chard and kale and other greens and edible flowers were used to make soup and salad that I served to visitors. Sustenance is possible from the soil here. I wanted to allow people to engage in an intimate and positive fashion with the dirt from this place. This is a place that holds stigma. With this project visitors can hold a vessel made from the soil of this neighborhood in their hands and up to their lips and taste what was grown here. They can sit on furniture made from the soil. People are invited to stop and experience the neighborhood in a different way.

The inclusion of the furniture was an important element for me. The form of the bench in particular is one that holds meaning. Often, a destination deemed important or beautiful comes equipped with a bench. Visitors are encouraged to sit on a bench that marks a vista point and directs their gaze. There are no such benches in the Tenderloin. Even Boeddeker Park, before it was closed for construction, had many of its benches removed to discourage people from sitting and staying. I wanted to take soil from this same site to construct a bench, to mark a vista, to propose that people experience this place and consider the value and history of place.

The Tenderloin has been in the news lately with the current parking ban on the first block of Turk St, meant to decrease crime. There have been mixed reactions to this. What do you think about the parking ban? The Tenderloin is a place that people with cars pass through. Most of the residents here do not own cars themselves, but the neighborhood is a thoroughfare for traffic, accidents and crime. This was not always the case. Both the visitors and residents of this neighborhood at one time came from a very different population. I am interested in how the realities of a place can change, while the land itself stays the same. What are the stories of this place? Where does the essence of place reside? How is value constructed?

Where is the best spot in the actual Tenderloin to sit down and have a cup of tea? I would drink tea on my fire escape when I lived in the Tenderloin. The coffee shop on the first floor of my apartment building would often be hit up by slightly incoherent robbers wielding guns. Today there are much fancier spots that have moved into the neighborhood.

I grew up in the Tenderloin and have many fond memories of living on Turk St. I also remember picking cockroaches from my cereal every morning. What are your best and worst memories from living in the Tenderloin? When I first moved into the Tenderloin I had to start by purging the apartment from what was left by the drug addict who lived there before me. I recycled a collection of beer bottles perched on gorgeous wood molding. I scrubbed mold from the refrigerator that was unplugged to save energy but never emptied. I discovered that mold can grow on undisturbed eggshells and turn them into Dr. Seuss style toxic specimens.

I broke down the absentee flat-mate’s door with massive bolt cutters to shut off the alarm clock she left on when she flew to New York. The daily 4:00 AM booming dance party alarm was surprisingly powerful. On her return, after finally meeting her, I learned about the bacchanalian witchy ceremonies she attended in the woods and the photo shoots that happened on the roof.

I remember dark light wells and stunning architecture and old elevators with pull doors that only sometimes worked. Outside there were the regular prostitutes with impossibly long legs who were always friendly and their johns who never were. I would walk to work at Fort Mason because it took less time than the bus. I took art classes in the Tenderloin and would sometimes have to duck into bars to evade cars that would trail me on my walk home. The Tenderloin was my home base for exploring a city and finding my place outside of my hometown.

About the interviewer: Michelle Lagasca is currently an CCA Connects Extern at SOMArts Cultural Center. She is studying at the California College of the Arts and will graduate in the Spring with a BFA in Illustration.

For more information about internships at SOMArts, please click here.

The above documentation of Ilana’s work was shot at the opening reception for Hidden Citie by Sree Sripathy

***TONIGHT!!!*** THE NEWS: FRESH, QUEER PERFORMANCE

The News is the new place to see fresh, queer performance by Bay Area artists. On the first Tuesday of each month The Newswill spotlight performance pieces, experiments, and works in progress by pre-selected solo artists, groups, or troupes. An informal session for artist-led critical feedback follows the performances.

This April AIRSpace’s new director Ernesto Sopprani (THEOFFCENTER, Emerging Arts Professionals) curates work from the most recent group of resident artists as well as that of friends and supporters of the program.  Join AIRSpace champion and mentor/board member Joe Landini (TheGarage, Market Street Now) in introducing this new phase of the AIRSpace residency project. The evening features performances by Rotimi Agbabiaka,  Brontez Purnell Dance Company, Dia Dear, Evan Johnson, k r m Mooney & Nicholas Andre Sung, José Navarrete, Eroca Nicols, and Phoebe Osborne.

The nature of The News is to give artists access to critical space for risk-taking in performance. In addition to artists selected by a guest curator, a “wild card” performer or two appears in each line-up at The News. “Wild cards” are artists who may not have been selected by the guest curators, but join in the evening to share new work. Artists interested in performing as a “wild card” at The News can find more information here.

PERFORMER BIOGRAPHIES

Rotimi Agbabiaka moved to the Bay Area 3 years ago after receiving an MFA in Acting from Northern Illinois University. Before Illinois he lived in Texas and Nigeria. In the past year he has performed with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and joined the cast of Beach Blanket Babylon. Last September he wrote and performed in the solo play, Homeless, which won the award for best solo performance in the 2010 San Francisco Fringe Festival. He has also workshopped and performed at Queer Autonomous Zone (QAZ), Yerba Buena Center (with Jess Curtis) and at various locations with THEOFFCENTER. He’s even popped up on a drag stage or two around town. He’s excited to dive into the world of blogging with such fine company.

Brontez Purnell Dance Company has been presenting experimental dance and movement theatre works with a radically open understanding of the forms, bodies, and idioms of dance since 2010. Brontez Purnell, author of the cult zine Fag School and frontman for his band The Younger Lovers, along with founding company member Sophia Wang, build works that combine punk rock subversion, free jazz improvisation, and a company comprised of movers and artists of all disciplines. The company has performed its original works at Oakland’s Lobot Gallery, The Berkeley Art Museum, The Garage, Counterpulse, SOMArts, and at Kunst-Stoff Arts, as part of Fresh Festival 2014.

Dia Dear’s work explores the essence of human-ness and reality. Stylistically combining nightclub aesthetics and traditional forms of performance, Dia Dear uses trickery, sincerity, and pop culture to create emotionally visceral and visually evocative eruptions in time. Dia Dear has been a featured artist at SFMoMA (SF), Highways Performance Space (Santa Monica, CA), The Lab (SF), SomArts (SF), CounterPULSE (SF), as well as numerous nightclubs in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, and Art Basel Miami. Learn more: diadear.com

Evan Johnson is a Bay Area based actor/creator. His previous solo work includes “Don’t Feel: The Death of Dahmer” (11.11 Art Group) at Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory. Evan has appeared onstage in the Bay Area with Inferno Theatre Company (“The Iliad”), Velvet Rage Productions (“Roseanne LIVE!”), Naked Empire Bouffon Company (“SHAME!”) and others. NCTC audiences may recognize Evan from lead roles in “Treefall” and “Slipping”. Evan was nominated for a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award (Best Actor in a Drama) in 2012 for “Treefall.” “Don’t Feel: The Death of Dahmer” was featured in the SF Bay Guardian’s year end review as one of the best small theatre productions of 2010. Evan would like to thank Ed Decker for this special opportunity.  Learn more: evanjohnsonperformance.com

k r m Mooney ( b. 1990 Seattle, works and lives in Oakland, CA ) works through gestures of abstraction as a strategy of resistance. Mooney is the director of “doubt it / talk series,” received a BFA from California College of the Arts in 2012 and is a current member of Real Time and Space.

José Navarrete, a native of México City, studied theater at the National Actors Association’s Institute Soler and Dance at the National Institute of Fine Arts in México. His choreographic work has been presented by the Bay Area Dance Series, the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Dance Festival, Summerfest, Theater Artaud, ODC Theater, and Dance Mission Theater. Navarrete has also received two nominations for the Isadora Duncan award in choreography and performance. In 2004, he was awarded a Bessie Schönberg Choreographers residency at The Yard and a Djerassi Resident Artist Program fellowship. He has a B.A. in Anthropology from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Dance from Mills College. He currently teaches dance to youth at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and will be creating a new work on students at California State University East Bay in Spring 2010.

Eroca Nicols studied in professional programs in Canada at both Ballet Creole and The School of Toronto Dance Theatre before pursuing further training in functionally based and improvisational forms. After earning her Honors BFA in Film/Video/Performance and Sculpture from California College of the Arts (San Francisco, CA), Eroca Nicols’ artistic practice shifted to the body. She is currently a nomadic Toronto-based artist, curator and educator. Her company, Lady Janitor, has presented work in Canada, USA, Europe, and the UK. Eroca has performed with Matthew Smith, Andrea Nann, Les Imprudanses, Francesca Pedulla and is co-founder of the arts advocacy and professional training provider, the Toronto Dance Community Love-In.

Eroca aka Lady Janitor is here in the Bay Area in residency at Kunstoff Arts and The Garage.

Phoebe Osborne is a choreographer and a mover. Her purpose and practice is to offer an embodied response to what is happening, rooted in listening and noticing. Her work has touched on concrete issues such as identity and culture, as well as explored the vast realities of subjects such as time and memory. Originally from the Bay Area, Osborne has also worked and lived in San Diego, Barcelona, and London.

Her current work God Sees Everything (July 2013-present) uses the topic of psychedelic drugs to unravel the modern approaches to the spiritual and transcendent qualities of the human experience and the fragmented capitalistic politics and power structures of white modernity. She has found that within an investigation of psychedelics, she is able to look at both abstract esoteric fields and global politics and relations, which she believes are deeply entwined within the collective psyche.

Nicholas Andre Sung is the director and curator of n/a, a queer contemporary art space in Oakland, California, and a multidisciplinary artist concerned with ontology, failure, sentimentality, presentation, and queer phenomenology.

Kolmel WithLove is the creator of The News. WithLove curates, builds cameras and costumes, collaborates with other artists, makes films, and performs. Their films have screened in a variety of settings including Frameline Film Festival, MIX Mexico, Seattle Center of Contemporary Art, RAID Projects and in the book and DVD project “Strange Attractors.”

WithLove has performed in venues including SOMArts Cultural Center, CounterPULSE, Highways Performance Space, The Velaslavasay Panorama Theatre, The Garage, various galleries, a few living rooms, two very nice leather bars, and a piano lounge.

ABOUT AIRSPACE AIRspace is a performing arts residency that supports the creation of new queer experimental theatre, contemporary dance, spoken word and multidisciplinary performance. By providing free rehearsal and performance space as well as critical feedback and artistic development opportunities for emerging LGBTQ artists in the Bay Area, we strive to strengthen and elevate queer Bay Area artistic voices, especially those artists that are least represented in the mainstream, including women artists, transgender artists and artists of color.  More info at airspace-sf.com.

 Brontez Purnell Dance Company, photo by Robbie Sweeny 

AFTER DARK BY MICHELE M. KING IN THE RAMP GALLERY, MARCH 31–APRIL 28

CHRISTINA SEELY’S SPECTROGRAMS IN HIDDEN CITIES

ilding out of her project Lux, for Intralux, SF, exhibiting artist Christina Seely takes the Hidden Cities exhibition namesake into two seemingly opposite directions. Using a series of spectrograms, Seely investigates the visible and invisible in urban light pollution— the artificial glow that emanates from populated areas at night.

In Seely’s NASA Map of the World at Night (SF), points of light scatter the world map as seen from space. The illuminated areas meld into each other, creating large expanses of luminosity, highlighting the human desire for visibility. Although beautiful from far away, one can’t ignore the negative implications involved with light pollution, and notice which areas are the brightest (in her larger project, Lux, Seely photographs the three brightest areas on the map: the United States, Western Europe and Japan).

On the other hand, in an investigation of the hidden, Seely’s spectrogram series analyzes the urban light of iconic San Francisco locations and breaks them down into their respective wave-lengths. Each spectrogram shows a unique pattern of light and color, making visible hidden details of our city’s most prominent locations.

Bay Bridge

Coit Tower

Golden Gate Bridge

Transamerica Pyramid

From far away and up close, Seely draws attention to our urban relationships with light, specifically with man-made light. We are forced to contemplate the consequences of our over-dependence on light and energy. In San Francisco, the message is even louder, as viewers notice the SF Bay Area fully lit up on the NASA Map of the World at Night, just about challenging us to take action.

You may read more about Lux at www.christinaseely.com. In addition, the monograph of Seely’s project will be published this year by Radius Books and The Museum of Contemporary Photography. Lastly, be sure to check out Seely’s photograph of San Francisco (below) on the front cover of San Francisco Magazine for April 2014.

About the writer: Michelle Lagasca is currently an CCA Connects Extern at SOMArts Cultural Center. She is studying at the California College of the Arts and will graduate in the Spring with a BFA in Illustration.

For more information about internships at SOMArts, pleaseclick here.

Photo credits: NASA Map of the World at Night by Christina Seely, installed in Hidden Cities at SOMArts, photo by Michelle Lagasca; Intralux, SF by Christina Seely, installed in Hidden Cities at SOMArts, photo by Michelle Lagasca; 37.791286, -122.389256, The Bay Bridge, Spectrograph Slide, Christina Seely; 37.802851, -122.405964, Coit Tower, Spectrograph Slide, Christina Seely; 37.808138, -122.476329, Golden Gate Bridge, Spectrograph Slide, Christina Seely; 37.795192, -122.402786, Transamerica Pyramid, Spectrograph Slide, Christina Seely; Lux, Metropolis 37°46′N122°26′W (San Francisco), 2005-2010, Lightjet Print, Christina Seely.

ARTIST INTERVIEW: YULIA PINKUSEVICH

Your piece for Hidden Cities, “Maximum Capacity” (pictured below), utilizes salvaged capacitors from Recology SF, San Francisco’s dump to reference population density of Silicon Valley. What sparked (pun intended) your interest in visually mapping this particular statistic? The recent evictions and rapid real-estate price growth has made the wealth vs. population density very apparent. I live on the border of East Palo Alto and Menlo Park, two very different neighborhoods, so I see how the wealthier neighbors have much more space per person. As soon as one crosses into East Palo Alto the population density triples— this to me speaks about ones wealth and the ability to buy space for yourself.

You have said that having been born and raised in the Ukraine, your “understanding of rules, social status, and human abilities were redefined when you moved to New York City.” What was redefined for you when you came to San Francisco? I first came to San Francisco after high school and immediately fell in love with the city. It’s very different from New York— its much smaller and quieter but underneath the quiet, if you dig a little, there is a world of excitement full of eccentric people. Here it seems acceptable to be your true self. What SF redefined for me was showing me that a city can nurture its eccentrics, have progressive politics (mostly) and care about environmental issues.

You’ve traveled to over a dozen countries and have lived in a number of states. Is there anything about San Francisco that strikes you as unique? Yes the light is majestic here. Also the rolling fog lingering over the mountain peaks puts me in a state of wonder every time. I also love the California coastline. Its very dramatic and never fails to impress!

What are your favorite pieces of architecture in San Francisco? I am particularly fond of the 3 bridges I cross, Golden Gate, East Bay and Dumbarton Bridge, each one has a very different feeling and vistas but each one captures and frames a specific part of the Bay Area which I enjoy. I also really love the artillery bunkers and old army barracks at the Marin Headlands. They are a potent piece of SF history. Plus, they are located in a place with the most incredible views.

What is the last most delicious thing you ate in San Francisco, and where can I get one? SF has lots of great places to eat. I recently discovered a tiny Japanese spot called Izakaya Sozai located at 1500 Irving St. Its always packed but well worth the wait. Their ramen and small plates are the best I ever had, plus the atmosphere is casual and authentic.

About the interviewer: Michelle Lagasca is currently an CCA Connects Extern at SOMArts Cultural Center. She is studying at the California College of the Arts and will graduate in the Spring with a BFA in Illustration.

For more information about internships at SOMArts, please click here.

Photo of Yulia at the Hidden Cities opening by Sree Sripathy; photo documentation of “Maximum Capacity” and “Under Progress” by Yulia Pinkusevich by Michelle Lagasca

BITTER/SWEET BY JESSICA EASTBURN IN THE RAMP GALLERY, MARCH 3–31

HIDDEN CITIES TALK

Tonight a dancer, cognitive scientist and architect come together among the art in Hidden Cities to explore why and how certain aspects of cities become overlooked, and how we can creatively intervene. Free, 6-8pm.

Hidden Cities, a set on Flickr.

MAKE ART YOUR BUSINESS: TAXES FOR ARTISTS, FEBRUARY 25

Get organized for tax season. Gary Bishop of Nice Records SF demystifies what tax prep looks like with a special insight into the needs of individual artists. Topics to be covered include organizing expenses, tracking information, using available tax and finance resources, and a lengthy Q&A portion.