Emerging Arts Professionals San Francisco Bay Area presents Emergence 2019: Peeling Back Professionalism. This year, we pull back the complex layers of professionalism—capitalism, equity, respect, commitment, control, creativity—and imagine a new and better version for all of us.
co-presented with
What makes a person a professional? When is the term “professional” used as a weapon vs. a demarcation of respect, commitment, and value for your work and colleagues? What really is professional in an intersectional, creative field?
Join us for a day of mental and physical deconstruction of professionalism, and work towards a better definition, at Emergence 2019: Peeling Back Professionalism — presented by Emerging Arts Professionals San Francisco/Bay Area (EAP) in partnership with SOMarts Cultural Center.
Emergence 2019: Peeling Back Professionalism
Monday, June 10, 2019 | 10am – 5pm at SOMArts
934 Brannan Street San Francisco, CA 94103
Light breakfast and refreshments and a no-host 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.
2019 Highlights
- PLENARIES: Opening and Indigenous Land Acknowledgements by Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash artist, poet, and activist Kanyon CayoteWoman Sayers-Roods; Keynote by Oakland-based artist, writer, and curator Leila Weefur (She/They/He).
- SESSIONS: Join workshops and roundtables on institutional support (or lack of) of professional development, the glory and the agony of code-switching, and the productive act of being unprofessional; work collectively to build an enlightened Professionalism Manifesto, a living archive, and a vision of a better arts future!
- AMENITIES: Light breakfast, snacks, and refreshments will be provided; a no-host lunch will be available on-site; for all you caregivers, a family room will be available for hanging out, playing with kiddos, breast-feeding, and other family needs, so you can participate as your full self!
- Plus, find out what this year’s EAP Fellows have been learning and creating, collect a “recipe” book of resources from the sessions, gather knowledge in the Library… and so much more!
Guiding Questions
- What makes a person a professional?
- How is the term “professional” used as a weapon in favor of xenophobia (“your kinky hair is not professional”) or exploitation (“it’s not professional to discuss your salary at work”)?
- How can the word “professional” be a demarcation of respect for your work and colleagues (“It’s not professional to blow off that grant deadline”) or note the depth of knowledge and commitment to your creative practice (“This isn’t a hobby; I’m a professional artist.”)?
- When capitalism falls, what will professionalism look like? What will we continue to value?
- What kind of professionalism would your ancestors get down with?
- When crisis and injustice erupt, what kind of “professionalism” should we or should we not maintain?
- What is professional in an intersectional, creative field?
Location
SOMArts is a vibrant, art-full place to visit whether you are seeing a performance, viewing an exhibition, taking a class, connecting with your neighbors or engaging with one of the Bay Area’s many cultural communities.
Located at 934 Brannan St. (between 8th and 9th), in San Francisco’s SoMa district, SOMArts is within two blocks of Muni lines 12, 19, 27, and 47. Civic Center/ UN Plaza BART Station is located on the corner of Market and 8th Street, and is 0.7 miles away. Detailed public transit and bicycle directions are available on Google Maps.
For more details and driving directions, visit somarts.org/visit-us
Opening Land Acknowledgements & Grounding
Kanyon CoyoteWoman Sayers-Roods
Kanyon Sayers-Roods is Costanoan Ohlone-Mutsun and Chumash; she also goes by her given Native name, “Coyote Woman”. She is proud of her heritage and her native name (though it comes with its own back story), and is very active in the Native Community. She is an Artist, Poet, Published Author, Activist, Student and Teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family, which currently is one of the few spaces in Central California available for the Indigenous community for ceremony. Kanyon’s art has been featured at the De Young Museum, The Somarts Gallery, Gathering Tribes, Snag Magazine, and numerous Powwows and Indigenous Gatherings. She is a recent graduate of the Art Institute of California, Sunnyvale, obtaining her Associate and Bachelor of Science degrees in Web Design and Interactive Media. She is motivated to learn, teach, start conversations around decolonization and reinidgenization, permaculture and to continue doing what she loves, Art.
“I am Ohlone & Chumash – California Native Woman. I am a creative artist ever inspired by nature and the natural world, Catalyst of decolonizing conversations. Contemp/Traditional Artist, Native Representative, Consultant, Advocate of Truth in History, Multimedia Artist, “Coyote”, T.E.K educator, and much more – Let’s Talk”
Keynote
Leila Weefur
Leila Weefur (She/They/He) is an artist, writer, and curator who lives and works in Oakland, CA, and received an MFA from Mills College. Weefurs practice considers the complexities of phenomenological Blackness through video, installation, printmaking, and lecture-performances. Using materials and visual gestures to access the tactile memory, Weefur explores the abject, the sensual and the nuances found in the social interactions and language with which our bodies have to negotiate space.
Weefur is a recipient of the Hung Liu award, the Murphy & Cadogan award, and the Walter & Elise Haas Creative Work Fund. Weefur has worked with local and national institutions including SFMOMA, Southern Exposure, The Wattis, and Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, New York.
Weefur is the Audio/Video, Editor In Chief at Art Practical and a member of The Black Aesthetic.
