For this, our thirteenth year of Emergence, we feature arts & culture workers sharing our own stories of becoming and how our creative practices and leadership practices continue to influence and inspire each other. Join your fellow arts and culture workers and emergent leaders for our first in-person convening since 2019. Share, reconnect, and celebrate the power of our diverse practices on Monday, June 3rd, for Emergence 2024: Our Stories in Practice — presented by Emerging Arts Professionals San Francisco/Bay Area (EAP) and Root Division.
Emergence 2024: Our Stories in Practice
Monday, June 3, 2024
10am – 4pm at Root Division
10:30am programs begin
1131 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
Snacks and lunch* will be provided on-site
Emergence, the annual convening of the EAP network, provides a collaborative platform for Bay Area arts & culture workers to connect, share ideas, and elevate their work and voices. EAP is committed to curating Emergence as a participatory experience that encourages deep connections and inquiries that are omnidirectional through generations, career levels, business models, and disciplines. Our goal is for you to walk away with actionable next steps, as well as tangible tools and a strengthened network to support your work.
Emergence 2024 Highlights
- KEYNOTES: Mutsun-Ohlone California Indigenous Two Spirit relative, artist, poet, author, activist, student, and teacher KANYON “COYOTEWOMAN” SAYERS-ROODS, & Grammy Nominated artist, ritual sound experience designer, international performer, facilitator, and director TOSSIE LONG.
- Sessions Include: “A Connecting Thread”, “Healing the Movement”, “Speaking Truth to Power”, and “Crafting Soul Remedies for Arts & Culture Work”
- Plus, find out what this year’s EAP Fellows have been learning and creating, experience practice-based note-taking, and catch your breath in the respite area… and so much more!
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[*] Note on provided food/drink: Snacks and lunches accommodating allergies and other specific food needs may not be available; if you have specific food restrictions, please plan to bring snacks and lunch, which you are welcome to keep on-site
Join your EAP network and community for our 13th annual convening!
Emerging Arts Professionals San Francisco/Bay Area presents Emergence 2024: Our Stories in Practice. Emergence provides a collaborative platform for Bay Area arts and culture workers to connect, share ideas, and elevate their work and voices. This year, we feature arts & culture workers sharing our own stories of becoming and how our creative practices and leadership practices continue to influence and inspire each other.
Emergence 2024 is presented in partnership with
Keynotes
Kanyon “CoyoteWoman” Sayers-Roods
Kanyon “Coyote Woman” Sayers-Roods is a proud Mutsun-Ohlone California Indigenous Two Spirit relative. As Co-founder & CEO of Kanyon Konsulting LLC, she strives to bridge the gap between indigenous and contemporary values. Through her global education efforts, Kanyon shares her life experiences and knowledge about California Native Americans, emphasizing the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Raised in Indian Canyon, the only federally recognized “Indian Country” in Central Coastal California, Kanyon honors the past to shape the future as an Ancestor in training. A renowned artist, poet, author, activist, student, and teacher, she has showcased her work at prestigious venues and holds degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media from the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale.
Tossie Long
San Francisco native with the incarnations of Mississippi, Tossie Long, is a ritual sound experience designer, international performer/artist, facilitator, and director. Nicknamed “Bone Rattler,” Tossie works at the intersections of music, culture, and sociopolitical edges, spanning from rock and roll vocals, to AfroFuturist productions, to immersive design experiences. As a multi-hyphenate and Grammy Nominated artist, Tossie is a practitioner of ceremonial music from around the world, with a focus on diasporic cosmologies.
*** Schedule subject to change. Check the posted schedule on-site for day-of schedule. ***
• All Day | 10AM–4PM
Respite Area
Room 3 (classroom)
A space for snacks, thought, crafts, and breaks
Crafting Soul Remedies
Room 2 (back gallery)
Help create a community-sourced list of our Arts Worker ills and offer antidotes to heal them.
Community Altar
Room 1 (front gallery)
Help create a community-sourced list of our Arts Worker ills and offer antidotes to heal them.
Check-in | 10:00–10:30AM
Morning Plenaries | 10:30AM–12:15PM
10:30–10:45AM | Room 2 (back gallery)
Welcoming Remarks
With EAP Co-Directors and Fellows
10:45–11:15AM | Room 2 (back gallery)
Opening Plenary with Kanyon “CoyoteWoman” Sayers-Roods
11:15–12:15AM | Room 2 (back gallery)
Award of Recognition and Keynote with Tossie Long
Lunch Break | 12:15–1:00PM
Networking & Activities Break | 1:00–1:15PM
Room 2 (back gallery)
Poetry Reading by Ashia Ajani
Room 2 (back gallery)
Crafting Soul Remedies
Co-create a community-sourced list of our Arts Worker ills and offer antidotes to heal them. Using the crafts provided, we invite you to join Cohort XIII Fellows in naming the medicine needed to heal the ills impacting the Arts & Culture filed and communities we nurture.
Room 1 (front gallery)
Community Altar
Help build a community-sourced list of our Arts Worker ills and offer antidotes to heal them.
Room 3 (classroom)
Respite Area
PLEASE NOTE: The respite area will be used for a breakout session from 1:00–2:45pm
Afternoon Breakout Sessions | 1:15–2:45PM
Room 1 (front gallery)
Speaking Truth to Power
Roundtable discussion & writing activity sharing stories of using language and theater to educate and advocate with Ashia Ajani and Reyna Brown
Room 2 (back gallery)
Healing the Movement
Roundtable discussion & movement activity sharing stories of dance, healing, and making change in self and community with Tyese Wortham and Chris Evans
Room 3 (classroom)
A Connecting Thread
Roundtable discussion & weaving activity sharing stories of textile artists and arts workers connecting people through their practices with Michelle Lin and Alyssarhaye Graciano
Networking & Activities Break | 2:45–3:00PM
Room 2 (back gallery)
Crafting Soul Remedies
Help create a community-sourced list of our Arts Worker ills and offer antidotes to heal them. Using the crafts provided, we invite you to join Cohort XIII Fellows in naming the medicine needed to heal the ills impacting the Arts & Culture filed and communities we nurture.
Room 1 (front gallery)
Community Altar
Help create a community-sourced list of our Arts Worker ills and offer antidotes to heal them.
Room 3 (classroom)
Respite Area
PLEASE NOTE: The respite area will be used for a breakout session from 1:00–2:45pm
Closing Plenaries | 3:00–4:00PM
3:00–3:40pm | Room 2 (back gallery)
Fellowship Cohort XIII
Through discussion and activation of Crafting Soul Remedies, our current fellowship cohort will share their experience and learnings in the program and offer their identified ill in the arts and culture sector and the remedy they offer to the field.
3:00–4:00pm | Room 2 (back gallery)
Crafting Soul Remedies Herbal Tea-Making Table
Create your personal healing herbal tea, inspired by our Fellows and Medicine for Our Ills
3:40–4:00pm | Room 2 (back gallery)
Cohort XIII Commencement
Celebrate our newest cohort as they transition from fellows to alumni and join our community of 200+ fellowship alums
Strike Party & Bubbly | 4:00–4:45PM
Alyssarhaye Graciano is a trilingual fiber artist, published author, and the Visual Arts Curator at MACLA. Born and raised in San José, Graciano focuses her curatorial practice on emerging and established artists of color, uplifting untold stories and artistic expressions. Her fiber work combines yarn sculptures and gouache painting, commenting on how we as humans assign value to objects and hoarde memories. She graduated with a BA in Languages and Literature with an emphasis in Spanish and French from the University of California, Riverside.
www.blacksheepmade.com
IG: @alyssarhaye & @blacksheepmade
Amber Lee (she/her) is an emerging arts organizer and storyteller currently based on the ancestral lands of the Ohlone people, also known as Berkeley, CA. Her favorite mediums to learn through and play with include food, movement, archive, and their intersections. She has worked with the California Migration Museum, Mycelium Youth Network, SF Taiwanese American Cultural Festival, and Edge on the Square to gather, break bread, un-earth and re-earth ancestral stories, and dream of life beyond empire. Amber is a co-author in the forthcoming anthology, Asian America Rising: Contemporary Activism in Theory and Practice. // EAP Program Assistant
Anna Lisa Escobedo is a multifaceted artist, encompassing roles as a visual artist, muralist, artivist, event producer, cultural worker, and networker. As a co-founder of the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District, she chaired the Cultural Arts Committee, leading a team of over 20 active members. Anna Lisa’s most fulfilling accomplishment lies in her direct engagement with the community and fellow artists. // Cohort XII Fellow
Ashia Ajani (they/she) is an environmental storyteller & educator hailing from Denver, CO, Queen City of the Plains and the unceded territory of the Cheyenne, Ute & Arapahoe peoples, now living in the Bay Area (unceded Ohlone land). They are the author of one collection of poetry, Heirloom (Write Bloody Publishing, 2023) and a forthcoming collection of lyric essays, Tending the Vines (Timber Press, TBA). Her writing is a kaleidoscope of her experience as an eco-griot and abolitionist.
Aspensong is a neurodistinct Two-Spirit artist and poet with chronic pain who lives on unceded Muwekma Ohlone lands in so-called Oakland. Ze is an abolitionist and believes in the revolutionary power of the arts to heal and sustain our communities. Ze believes in prioritizing our most marginalized community members, and is passionate about Palestinian liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, and Black liberation. Art forms ze loves include writing, drag, beadwork, printmaking, filmmaking, dancing, movement, and performance art. Ze has a background as a Research Assistant at SFSU’s Social Perception, Attitudes and Mental Simulation Lab, and was part of Radar Production’s 2023 Poetry + Art Residency, Show Us Your Spines. Ze is currently creating a poetry workshop, and grateful to be participating in this year’s Indigiqueer Festival in Seattle’s Pier 32 on June 29th. // Cohort XIII Fellow
@enbeguiling
Chris Evans, founder of Deep Breath Pilates, is a certified Pilates Instructor and Massage Therapist, and Level 2 Talawa Technique practitioner, a technique that centers Africanist movement technologies. She is also an interdisciplinary artist trained in music and dance who creates immersive, interactive work with the goal of cultivating sacred spaces for communal listening, healing, and transformation. She directed the Reconstruction Study Project. // AAC Beta Cohort & Cohort I Alum
Crysta Tim-Ruiz is an artist working in largely digital, watercolor, and written media. Their art style is inspired by anime influence and their writing varies from poetry to short story work. They love to explore new mediums and create collaborative works with friends as well. Professionally, Crysta has grown as a programs manager with Arts Council Napa Valley, taking the opportunity to invest in the artistic community of their hometown. They find themselves lucky each day to be able to directly impact the growth and positive change of the local arts community while growing as an artist along the way. // Cohort XIII Fellow
artscouncilnapavalley.org
IG: @eatmystaars
Crystal Liu is a San Francisco Bay Area-based theatre artist and arts administrator. She has felt and witnessed the healing powers of theatre from the age of nine and has sought to deepen her understanding of the craft ever since. Crystal currently co-leads Theatre Rhinoceros as Development Director & Company Manager, and has performed with, worked backstage for, and held administrative positions in theater companies all over the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds BAs in Theater and Anthropology from Yale University and is particularly interested in theatre that focuses on education, youth, and marginalized communities. // Cohort XIII Fellow
Kanyon is a vocalist, sound healer, dancer and student of sacred chant, music and dance from around the world. She shares her art in a variety of Bay Area settings and beyond. Her repertoire includes Hawaiian oli, mele and hula, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian and Haitian folkloric music and dance (and a little percussion), Sanskrit mantras, R & B, inspirational music and more. She performs and studies with many local groups including Arenas Dance Company, NaLeiHuluIKaWekiu, Brasarte, Alafia Dance Ensemble, Loco Bloco, Ayitian Foklo Lakay, Yoga of the Voice, WeSing and more. She conducts community song circles for wellness focused organizations. She believes that music is a tool for healing, empowerment, culture keeping, building relationships, and celebrating significant events in our lives. With it we can build trust and interdependence with each other in community.” // Cohort XIII Fellow
Karen A. Smith is a vocalist, sound healer, dancer and student of sacred chant, music and dance from around the world. She shares her art in a variety of Bay Area settings and beyond. Her repertoire includes Hawaiian oli, mele and hula, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian and Haitian folkloric music and dance (and a little percussion), Sanskrit mantras, R & B, inspirational music and more. She performs and studies with many local groups including Arenas Dance Company, NaLeiHuluIKaWekiu, Brasarte, Alafia Dance Ensemble, Loco Bloco, Ayitian Foklo Lakay, Yoga of the Voice, WeSing and more. She conducts community song circles for wellness focused organizations. She believes that music is a tool for healing, empowerment, culture keeping, building relationships, and celebrating significant events in our lives. With it we can build trust and interdependence with each other in community.” // Cohort XIII Fellow
Michelle Lin (they/she) is a textiles and mixed media artist, cultural worker, and author of the poetry collection A House Made of Water (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2017). Their writing and art practice are rituals of grief and healing from the violence of patriarchy, capitalism, assimilation, and living within the imperial core. Passionate about building liberatory spaces for diasporic and queer artists, they work as the Artist Growth Program Director at ARTogether and serve on the Advisory Councils for Vital Arts and Artists’ Adaptability Circles. // Fellowship Cohort XI Alum
michellelinmakes.com
IG: @firstborncryptid
Reyna Brown (they/them) is an artist, leader, activist, poet, teacher, director, and facilitator based in Richmond (Contra Costa County). As a teaching artist, Reyna has worked with students from kindergarten through adults with organizations such as StageWrite, University of San Francisco, San Quentin State Prison, and the American Conservatory Theater. They also run their own small business called Amplify that offers customized workshops to help communities understand unconscious bias using art, music, and poetry. In facilitating implicit bias training, Reyna uses storytelling and interactive theater activities to create a playful atmosphere for communities to engage in difficult conversations and meaningful reflections. They graduated from the University of San Francisco with a BA in Performing Arts & Social Justice with a concentration in Theater and a minor in Peace and Justice Studies in 2019 and are pursuing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at the California Institute of Integral Studies. // Fellowship Cohort XI Alum & EAP Co-Director
Rhiannon Evans MacFadyen (they/them) is a curator, consultant, facilitator, and project-based artist, born and based in San Francisco (San Francisco County). With 20 years experience in the performing and visual arts, Rhiannon is deeply influenced by their own, and their communities’, intersectional identities and by their pursuit of “productive discomfort.” Their curatorial focus is on projects that push boundaries of scale, scope, medium, venue, and dialogue; and her cross-discipline personal work engages symbols, identity, communication, and the unseen. Founder of A Simple Collective and Black & White Projects and Director of Emerging Arts Professionals SFBA, they are passionate about equity, experimentation, and independence in the arts and provide constructive, flexible consulting to contemporary artists, artrepreneurs, & small institutions. // Fellowship Cohort V Alum & EAP Co-Director
linktr.ee/pushingart
@curation.culture.community
Tossie Long is a San Francisco native with the incarnations of Mississippi. She is a ritual sound experience designer, international performer/artist, facilitator, and director. Nicknamed “Bone Rattler,” Tossie works at the intersections of music, culture, and sociopolitical edges, spanning from rock and roll vocals, to AfroFuturist productions, to immersive design experiences. As a multi-hyphenate and Grammy Nominated artist, Tossie is a practitioner of ceremonial music from around the world, with a focus on diasporic cosmologies. // Fellowship Cohort IV & AAC Cohort I Alum & 2024 EAP Awardee
Tyese Wortham // Fellowship Cohort I Alum & EAP Advisory Board Member
Event Photographer
Hewitt Visuals, LLC (Co-owned by Bryan and Vita Hewitt) offers event coverage and artwork documentation in both photography and video with a relaxed, creative approach.
IG: @hewittvisualsfilms & @hewitt_visuals
Venue
Root Division is a visual arts non-profit that connects creativity and community through a dynamic ecosystem of arts education, exhibitions, and studios.
IG: @rootdivision
A special Thank You to our Emergence 2024 funders
