Join us for the unveiling of the two murals commissioned alongside our current exhibition, Maintenance Actions for Dis/Repair, co-curated by our 2024 Archives and Collections Fellows Alexander An-Tai Hwang and Lesdi Goussen Robleto. Artists Champoy, commissioned for a mural painted on the facade of our garage, and Miguel Franco, commissioned for a mural painted alongside the Clarion Alley Mural Project, will talk about their inspirations and guide us on a walk from 500 Capp St to Clarion Alley.
Author: gveloso
Maintenance Actions For Dis/Repair
“Maintenance Actions for Dis/Repair” features a collection of archival ephemera that enlivens the history of politics and activism across institutions and art organizations in the Bay Area curated by 500 Capp Street’s 2024 Collections and Archive Fellows Alexander An-Tai Hwang, and Lesdi C. Goussen Robleto. The exhibition will run from July 20 to August 16, 2024.
Borrowing from local archives, including SFAI, SFMOMA, Galeria de la Raza, Kearny Street Workshop, we weave together a tapestry of local interventions and community actions at the intersection of art, politics, and experimentation. Presented in the Paule Anglim Archive room, which once was the basement of 500 Capp Street during David Ireland’s time, we are interested in mining the conceptual and historical conditions of the basement– as land, as thinking space, as source material, as art object– and now, as archive.
We come to this project during a time of global reckoning and calls to action urging for a ceasefire in Palestine and the end of Israeli occupation. Heeding the call of artists and cultural workers in the Bay Area, who condemn the complicity, silence, and censorship of art institutions and organizations– “Maintenance Actions for Dis/Repair” invites us to meditate on local histories, community actions, and solidarity in the arts.
Through the exhibition, ephemera of the past provoke intergenerational encounters that invite us to revisit how artists, cultural workers, and community members have utilized art to speak out against genocide, apartheid, and US imperialism. Through these connections, we delve into the synergy and tension between experimental frameworks and liberatory praxis, and the discrepant legacies of conceptual art and alternative art spaces from the 1970s to the present.
“Maintenance Actions for Dis/Repair” takes up the labor of maintenance to recuperate the entanglement between experimental aesthetics and social political practice to uphold the legacies of flourishing activism in the arts.
Looking toward the future, we ask: How can we expand the narratives of what this house was/ is/ and can be? How can we lean into speculative histories and potential futures within the walls of this space? How might we honor intergenerational resistance, past and present? How can we cultivate intergenerational knowledge against oppression and toward collective liberation? How can we serve as a site that actively resists the censorship of this moment?
Working out of David’s engagement with the basement and the foundation of this house, we anchor in his historical “Maintenance Action”–which involved stripping, sanding, repairing, and sealing the walls to propose a maintenance action of our own, as an intervention into this space, its foundations, and its archive. While David’s maintenance actions preserved the material histories of the house – the cracks, the scratches, the dents – our maintenance action extends outside of the physical structure of 500 Capp St to maintain local histories of activism in alternative art spaces, while questioning the status quo, inviting the public to reckon with what needs to be un-maintained, un-done, and un-repaired.
Images: 1. SFAI student actions in protest of U.S. intervention in Central America and in solidarity with revolutionary moments of the time, including the 1984 SFAI exhibition Artist Call: Against U.S. Intervention in Central America. Courtesy of SFAI Archives 2. 500 Capp street Archival photo of the basement 3. Rachael Romero, Wilfred Owen Brigade, Defend Human Rights in Chile, ca. 1976. Courtesy of SFMOMA Archives.
The 500 Capp Street 2023-2024 Collections and Archive Fellowship is generously funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.
![[moisture ++++ more] An Experimental Cacophony / A Way of Being Together / A Writing Workshop](https://500cappstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/image-4.png)
[moisture ++++ more] An Experimental Cacophony / A Way of Being Together / A Writing Workshop
Join makers and thinkers from UNIDEE’s second Neither on Land nor at Sea residency module for a speculative and fun experimental writing workshop. We will collectively think about the site, experience, and implications of MOISTURE. Our time together will culminate in a collective cacophonous reading that spans each participant’s chosen world.
Date: Sunday, January 19th, 2025
Time: 1 – 4 PM (Doors open at 12 PM)
Community Building Through Foraging, Walking and Eating
Saturday, February 22, 2025; 12-3pm. Get Tickets
Join us for an afternoon of community building, foraging, and food sharing at 500 Capp Street! Please bring a food or spice container and/or recipe with personal, cultural, or ancestral meaning.
The afternoon begins with refreshments served in the dining room. At 12:30 PM, Minoosh Zomorodinia will lead a one-hour guided neighborhood walk, sharing observations from her residency at 500 Capp Street. Please wear comfortable shoes and clothes for walking outside.
After the walk, participants can contribute to two exhibition altars: the Earth Altar and the Fire Altar. The Earth Altar is for food containers with personal, cultural, or ancestral meaning. The Fire Altar welcomes spice containers or recipes for favorite dishes. These offerings will become part of the altars, creating a communal archive of nourishment and survival.
Following the offerings, we will engage in a collective discussion, sharing the stories behind our chosen containers and exploring the politics of food production and access. We’ll consider how nourishment connects us to ecology, migration, and justice, reflecting on the following questions:
- How does food connect us to place, memory, and culture?
- What unseen forces shape the foods we eat and connect us?
- How much information do we have about the ingredients we use?
- Do you know where your food comes from?
- What are your favorite foods, spices, and smells?
- How can exploring the histories, politics, and connections behind food deepen our understanding of interconnectedness?
Community Building, Melting Pot, Bahar
When: Saturday, March 15, 2025; 1-9:30pm
Where: 500 Capp Street
Price: Free
Registration Here
Celebrating Bahar (spring) until sundown by Iftar with Minoosh Zomorodinia and Shirini Bakes.
The Community Building, Melting Pot, Bahar event is a special gathering designed to bring people together through the shared experience of food, fasting, and celebration. Inspired by Nowruz, marking the arrival of spring and the Persian New Year, and Ramadan, a sacred time of reflection and fasting, this event highlights the rich cultural traditions of diverse communities. By breaking fast together, sharing meals, and exchanging stories, we create a melting pot where people from different backgrounds can connect, learn, and celebrate renewal, unity, and togetherness. It is a joyful occasion that fosters understanding and a sense of belonging.
Important things to note to participants: We will not be eating throughout the day, only after sundown. This is called breaking the Iftar.
Part One: Cooking and preparing food and staging the iftar (1-5)
Join us while we cook and prepare food to be served at a later event. Learn about the Persian cuisine that is prepared during the springtime. Later on we will together stage the iftar table and learn about the different ways food takes part in the Spring celebration. Sign up for either or both of the time slots below. An important aspect to consider is that we will not be eating throughout the event and will respect the tradition of fasting. We will come together again after sundown to break the fast.
Part Two: Conversation about Sofre and zine followed by eating (6-9:30pm)
Join resident artist Minoosh Zomorodinia and collaborator Shirin Makaremi as we walk through Minoosh’s exhibition and talk about the Persian New Year table (Haftseen Sofreh) and the Iftar table. There will be zines and other takeaways relating to the event and holiday. Later on we’ll come together to “break the fast” after sundown and enjoy the meal prepared by the 500 Capp community earlier that day.