Episode 2: ABBA Summit Opening & Keynotes

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Arts for a Better Bay Area State of the Arts Summit 2023, “Rebuilding Our Communities” June 28th, 2023
Photo Credits: Jonathan Moscone by Pax Ahimsa Gethen -  funcrunch.org, Ralph Remington by Amanda Villa, ABBA Summit - Eric Estrada, Lyzette Wanzer, and Skot Kuiper

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“This is a time when the art community's creative expertise and skills and talents are being relied upon. And finally, really seen as major contributors to the local economy.” – Maria Jensen

Welcome to the second episode of our special series of community dialogues “The State of Our Arts & Culture Organizations,” We worked with Arts for a Better Bay Area to co-produce their State of the Arts Summit 2023, on June 28th, 2023 with the theme “Rebuilding Our Communities”. The State of the Arts Summit discusses current challenges in the wake of the COVID pandemic. Artists, administrators, government officials, and representatives from various networks, coalitions, collectives, and advocacy groups explore collective ways the arts community can develop and bridge supportive connections as we emerge from the pandemic. This episode features the Opening Speakers as well as the Keynote Speakers of the summit.

Honey Mahoney-Co-Founder Compton’s Transgender Cultural District

Honey Mahogany is an activist, politician, and social worker who grew up in San Francisco and received her Masters in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Honey started her career in civic engagement working at Larkin Street Youth Services and the Rainbow Community Center. From there, she co-founded the Transgender District alongside Aria Sa’id and Janetta Johnson.

Mahogany currently serves as Chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party and as a Legislative Aide to District 17 Assembly-member Matt Haney. Fun fact: she was also the co-owner of the legendary Stud Bar, which previously reigned as San Francisco’s oldest queer bar. She has been featured in publications such as Out Magazine, The Advocate, Forbes, and Vogue and has appeared on screen in several tv series including HBO’s Looking, ABC’s Our America, and – perhaps most famously – RuPaul’s Drag Race. Honey’s work has earned her recognition from the City of San Francisco and the State of California; Sainthood from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence; and awards from the Milk Club, SF Young Democrats, SF Women’s Political Committee, and the Women’s Foundation of California.

Lyzette Wanzer-Author, Editor & Workshop Instructor

Lyzette Wanzer’s work appears in over twenty-five literary journals, books, and magazines. Library Journal named her book, TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives, a Top 10 Best Social Sciences Book. Publishers Weekly featured the book in Fall 2022. Lyzette is a contributor to Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth From the Margins (Wayne State University Press 2023), Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area (Pease Press 2019), and the multi-award-winning The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2012).

A National Writers’ Union and Authors Guild member, Lyzette’s work has been supported with grants from the Center for Cultural Innovation, San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Black Artist Foundry, The Awesome Foundation, and California Humanities, a National Endowment for the Humanities partner. She has been awarded writing residencies at Blue Mountain Center (NY), Kimmel Harding Center for the Arts (NE), Playa Summer Lake (OR), Horned Dorset Colony (NY), Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow (AR), Headlands Center for the Arts (CA), The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada, PlySpace (IN), and The Anderson Center (MN).

Note: Please listen or watch the great interview with Lyzette at the ABBA’s State of The Art Summit by clicking on the audio or video file links below.

Michael Warr & Chun Yu-Two Languages / One Community

Michael Warr's books include Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin (W.W. Norton), and from Tia Chucha Press The Armageddon of Funk, We Are All The Black Boy and Power Lines: A Decade of Poetry From Chicago's Guild Complex. In 2017 he was named a San Francisco Library Laureate. Other poetry honors include a Creative Work Fund award for his multimedia project Tracing Poetic Memory in Bayview Hunters Point, PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature, Black Caucus of the American Library Association Award, Gwendolyn Brooks Significant Illinois Poets Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. Michael is the former Deputy Director of the Museum of the African Diaspora and has extensive experience in community-based arts. He became a board member of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library in 2018. Follow his creative work at his tumblr site

Chun Yu, Ph.D. is the author of the multi-award-winning memoir Little Green (Simon & Schuster) and a historical graphic novel in progress (Macmillan) and more. Her work has been published in the award-winning anthology Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, Open Doors, Boston Herald, MIT Tech Talk, etc. Her new bilingual poetry collection in English and Chinese and her graphic novel on Chinese immigration experience have won San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity and Individual Artist Grants. Her work merges science, art, and spirituality based on her experiences as an immigrant from an ancient culture undergoing a revolution to a new world of transformative science and technologies. She has won support from the Zellerbach Foundation and Poets & Writers etc. for her community work in poetry and writing. Chun holds a B.S. and M.S. from Peking University and a Ph.D. from Rutgers in chemistry and was a postdoctoral fellow at a Harvard-MIT joint program. Follow her work at her website You can find out more on their website Two Languages / One Community

Susie McKinnon-Arts for a Better Bay Area

Susie McKinnon has worked in the nonprofit sector for more than 14 years in management, leadership, and consulting capacities. She develops and oversees strategic and operational planning and implementation, programming, fundraising, and more. Susie serves as the director of Arts for a Better Bay Area and provides management consulting to other nonprofits, small businesses, and artistic projects. She holds a BFA in Fine Arts and Media and a master’s degree in Public Administration. She is also an artist herself and an ardent advocate for the arts. You can reach Susie at susie@betterbayarea.org

Maria Jensen-Creative & Executive Director, SOMARTS Cultural Center

Maria Jenson is recognized as a leader in the arts for advancing innovative strategies to sustain creative communities in the midst of rapidly changing urban environments. As Creative and Executive Director of SOMArts, Jenson has deepened the organization’s commitment to racial equity, creating clear pathways for Bay Area artists to cultivate new ideas and grow their careers. Through her leadership, Jenson has expanded SOMArts’ public programs, advanced new public-private partnerships, and fostered groundbreaking exhibitions such as The Black Woman is God, The Third Muslim: Queer and Trans* Muslim Narratives of Resistance and Resilience, and many more. These projects represent SOMArts’ commitment to incubating the growth and careers of Bay Area artists and curators.

Prior to joining SOMArts, Jenson was a key member of the SFMOMA External Relations team during the museum’s expansion and was the Founding Director of ArtPadSF, an independent art fair launched in the Tenderloin at the Phoenix Hotel in 2010. A graduate of the 2018 Getty Foundation Executive Leadership Institute, Jenson is a sought-after thought leader on the role of cultural institutions advocating for a more democratic and equitable society.

Listen or watch Jensen’s interview

Ralph Remington-Director of Cultural Affairs, San Francisco Arts Commission

Ralph Remington has extensive professional experience in arts administration and government and as a director, actor, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter.

Prior to joining the City and County of San Francisco, he served as the Deputy Director for Arts and Culture for the City of Tempe, Arizona. In that role, he was responsible for Tempe Center for the Arts comprehensive performance and visual arts programming, as well as overseeing public art, the Tempe History Museum, arts engagement, and municipal arts granting.

Remington previously served as the former Western Regional Director and Assistant Executive Director for the Actors Equity Association in Los Angeles. He also served as  Director of Theater and Musical Theater at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Washington, D.C. In 2010, he received the NEA Chairman's Distinguished Service Award.

Prior to working at the NEA, Remington was a City Council member for the City of Minneapolis. A former Guthrie Theater Acting Company member, he is the founding Producing Artistic Director of the award-winning Pillsbury House Theatre in South Minneapolis. Remington has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama from Howard University.

Listen or watch Remington’s interview

Jonathan Moscone-Executive Director, California Arts Council

Jonathan Moscone serves as the Executive Director of the California Arts Council, the state’s arts agency with a mission of strengthening arts, culture, and creative expression as tools to cultivate a better California for all. Prior to his role as ED, Jonathan served as a Council member.

From 2015 to 2022, Moscone served as Chief Producer of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in San Francisco. Through strategic leadership, political advocacy, and community and civic partnerships, he activated YBCA’s mission by creatively engaging people in shaping the city’s future.

Prior to joining YBCA’s leadership team, Moscone was an Artistic Director of the California Shakespeare Theater (Cal Shakes) in Berkeley, California for 15 years. Under his leadership, Cal Shakes made a name for itself as one of the country’s most innovative regional theaters, while also pioneering educational and community engagement programs with a focus on developing a sustainable culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Moscone is the first recipient of the  Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation’s Zelda Fichandler Award for “transforming the American theater through his unique and creative work.” Moscone's past roles include serving as the Executive Committee board leadership of New York City’s Theater Communications Group (TCG), and being named a 2016 Fellow at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California. Moscone is a recipient of a Princess Grace Fellowship award for theater directing.  Jonathan received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama and BA from Williams College. He lives in San Francisco with his husband Darryl, his dog Lucy and his cat Turtle.

Listen or watch Moscone’s Interview:

Compton’s Transgender Cultural District

Founded by three black trans women in 2017 as Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, The Transgender District is the first legally recognized transgender district in the world. Originally named after the first documented uprising of transgender and queer people in United States history, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riots of 1966, the district encompasses 6 blocks in the southeastern Tenderloin and crosses over Market Street to include two blocks of 6th street. In 2016, the City of San Francisco renamed portions of Turk and Taylor to commemorate the historic contributions of transgender people, renaming them “Compton’s Cafeteria Way” and “Vikki Mar Lane” respectively.

This urban region of the city’s Tenderloin District has held a documented, ongoing presence of transgender residents since as early as the 1920s- with the Tenderloin known as a “gay ghetto” during the 1930s to the 1960s- prior to the birth of the internationally renowned Castro District in San Francisco. This area is home to the city of San Francisco’s first LGBT bar, and various community spaces, gathering sites, and hotels with cultural significance for the broader transgender and queer community in the Tenderloin.

We aim to create an urban environment that celebrates the transgender tipping point in the United States and the world while educating the world about the deep profundity of transgender culture and our contributions to the liberation of humankind. You can support the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District through making a donation

Lyzette Wanzer

Lyzette Wanzer is a San Francisco writer, editor, and writing workshop instructor. Her work appears in over twenty-five literary journals, magazines, books, and newspapers Her book, TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narratives (Chicago Review Press) has been named an October 2022 Publishers Weekly Best Book, and appears on Library Journal's 2022 Top 10 Best Social Sciences Books list. Her articles have appeared in Essay Daily, The Naked Truth, and the San Francisco University High School Journal. Her research interests include professional development for creative writers, Black feminism, critical race theory, and the lyrical essay form.

Lyzette serves as judge of the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition's Intercultural Essay category and the Women's National Book Association's Effie Lee Morris Writing Contest's Fiction category. She presented her work on panels at conferences across the country, including the American and Popular Culture Association, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), College English Association, Desert Nights, Rising Stars (Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing), Empowering Wom[x]n of Color Conference, Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900, Grub Street's Muse & The Marketplace, San Francisco Writers Conference, The Society for the Study of African American Life and History, and Southern Humanities Council.

In August 2021 she produced her own two-day virtual conference, Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: A Natural Hair Conference, panels, workshops, and readings examining the policing, perception, politics, and persecution of Black women's natural hair.  For info on my events, appearances, and workshops, folks should visit Lyzette’s website You can purchase the book through Chicago Review Press’s website. You can support Lyzette's TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH project's literary and cultural production work by making a donation.

Michael Warr & Chun Yu-Two Languages / One Community

Two Languages / One Community began as a workshop that uses writing and translation to exchange culture and life experiences between African Americans and Chinese speakers. These communities are often culturally isolated from each other, even though they live in the same neighborhood or work together. We believe that sharing stories and language facilitates understanding, connection, and support.

With our partnering organizations, the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, we have presented public readings of poetry and prose created in our bilingual workshops. The writing is published in English and Chinese online and in our book series Catching Memory.

We are proud of the agility and openness of the project. It can be tailored to fit all ages, novice and seasoned writers, and languages other than English and Chinese. We look forward to taking the project to other communities in the Bay Area and beyond. If you are interested in bringing the project to your community, reach out to us at https://twolanguagesonecommunity.com/connect.

The Two Languages / One Community project has received support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, the City of Oakland Cultural Funding Program, Poets & Writers, and Ashley Bullitt.

兩種語言/一個社群項目開始於一個以寫作和翻譯促進非裔和華裔之間文化與生活經歷交流的工作坊。這兩個族裔常常在同一個社區環境中一起生活工作卻在文化上互相隔離。我們相信這樣的交流能够促進社區之間的相互理解、連接、和支持。

我們與合作機構舊金山中華文化中心和奧克蘭亞洲文化中心舉辦了公眾朗誦會，展現來自我們雙語工作坊的詩歌和散文作品。這些作品發表在我們的《追尋記憶》系列中。

我們為這個項目的靈活性和開放性感到自豪。它適合所有年齡段，新手和經驗豐富的寫作者，以及英語和中文之外的其它語言。我們希望能夠將這個項目帶入灣區的其它社群。如果您有興趣將這個項目帶入您的社群，請與我們聯繫。

兩種語言/一個社群項目得到了Zellerbach家庭基金會、奧克蘭市文化資助計劃、非營利組織詩人與作家、和Ashley Bullitt的支持。

Chun Yu and Michael Warr are available as a dynamic duo or as dynamic individuals for workshops, panels, presentations, and readings. For more information contact us at info@twolanguagesonecommunity.com. We can be contacted individually at:
Michael Warr: warrzone6666@gmail.com
Chun Yu: info@chunyu.org

For Chun Yu's event booking for Little Green please see her website: chunyu.org/events/event-booking

Arts for a Better Bay Area

Arts for a Better Bay Area's (ABBA) objective is to develop a network of artists, advocates, and supporters dedicated to building community-wide solidarity to increase support and equitable access to the arts. As a coalition of individuals and organizations, we inform and mobilize the arts community through community-driven action.
Want to know more about ABBA's history, accomplishments, and work? Visit our History page. Want to join us as an OFFICIAL arts advocate member? Become a donating member today as a supporting individual or organization!

Purpose
Arts for a Better Bay Area (ABBA) was launched in 2015 to focus attention on the support needed to sustain the Bay Area's fragile arts ecosystem. Now and into the future: ABBA’s objective is to develop a network of artists, advocates, and supporters dedicated to building community-wide solidarity to increase support and equitable access to the arts. As a coalition of individuals and organizations, we inform and mobilize the arts community through community-driven action.
Get Involved
Support Arts for a Better Bay Area through a donation
Arts Commons
State of the Arts Summit Resource Directory
State of the Arts 2023 Slide Show

SOMArts Cultural Center

SOMArts plays a vital role in the arts ecosystem by helping activate the arts citywide. We do this by providing space and production support for non-profit events, as well as fairs and festivals throughout the Bay Area, and offering a robust program of art exhibitions, classes, events, and performances that are affordable and accessible to all. SOMArts is beloved in San Francisco as a cross-cultural, community-built space where cutting-edge events and counterculture come together with traditional art forms in a way that is open, engaging, and inspiring. It is an incubator for ideas that lie outside the mainstream of contemporary art funding and consumption.
Current & Upcoming Events
Programs
You can support SOMArts through a donation

San Francisco Arts Commission

The San Francisco Arts Commission is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment, and shaping innovative cultural policy.

RACIAL EQUITY STATEMENT
The San Francisco Arts Commission is committed to creating a city where all artists and cultural workers have the freedom, resources, and platform to share their stories, art, and culture and where race does not predetermine one’s success in life. We also acknowledge that we occupy traditional and unceded Ohlone land. Fueled by these beliefs, we commit to addressing the systemic inequities within our agency, the City and County of San Francisco, and the broader arts and culture sector. This work requires that we focus on race as we confront inequities of the past, reveal inequities of the present, and develop effective strategies to move all of us toward an equitable future. Read Our Racial Equity Action Plan [2021-2023]

OUR VISION
The San Francisco Arts Commission envisions a San Francisco where the transformative power of art is critical to strengthening neighborhoods, building infrastructure, and fostering positive social change. We believe the arts create inspiring personal experiences, illuminate the human condition, and offer meaningful ways to engage with each other and the world around us. We imagine a vibrant San Francisco where creativity, prosperity, and progress go hand in hand. We advance artists’ ideas to improve the quality of life for everyone through a united cultural sector whose contributions are vital and valued.
Programs
Funding for the Arts
Resources
Get Involved

CALIFORNIA ARTS COUNCIL

Culture is the strongest signifier of California’s identity. As a state agency, the California Arts Council supports local arts infrastructure and programming statewide through grants, programs, and services.

Mission
Strengthening arts, culture, and creative expression as the tools to cultivate a better California for all.

Vision
A California where all people flourish with universal access to and participation in the arts.

Values
•    Community – Authentic inter-generational and intersectional connections
•    Accessibility – Inclusion, simplicity, and ease, resulting in equitable participation
•    Aesthetics – Recognizing all art forms and artistic traditions that enable full and meaningful creative expression
•    Autonomy with Accountability – Empowered, responsible generation and allocation of resources
•    Relevance – Broad influence, bold leadership, and synergizing collaboration for the present, with a sharp eye  toward emerging developments and needs of the future
•    Equity – Service according to the need to prioritize racial injustice, representation, and visibility of all groups
•    Sustainability – Wise, impactful, and responsive growth
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Collective
Learning Center
Support the Arts

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Voices of the Community is supported by a grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, whose Arts and Culture grants ensure vibrant work is created, new voices are celebrated, and artists and audiences inclusive of the Bay Area’s diverse communities and cultures have opportunities to thrive. Find out more at ZFF dot org

Voices of the Community is supported by a grant from the Peaceful World Foundation dedicated to fostering a culture of global peace through the promotion of hosted conversations and education. You can learn more at peaceful world foundation dot org.

Thanks to our CoProduction Partner

BAVC Media is a community hub and resource for media makers in the Bay Area and across the country, serving several thousand freelancers, filmmakers, job-seekers, activists, and artists every year. BAVC Media provides access to media making technology, storytelling workshops, a diverse and engaged community of makers and producers, services and resources. Get Training, participate in the MediaMaker Fellowship, become a member and produce shows through the SF Commons program.

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