Kearny Street Workshop's Thursday Night Series
Kearny Street Workshop was formed in 1972 to serve the Chinese American community through the arts. Throughout its history, KSW’s workshops provided a base for Asian American artists to not only teach their skills, but also encourage creative expression within a larger Asian American community. Thursday Night Series takes its name from these workshops that allowed this community of artists to develop a social consciousness and orient their work toward the improvement of community conditions.
Silkscreen artist and former executive director Nancy Hom takes artwork out of the International Hotel a day after the hotel's tenants were evicted.
The workshop’s first home was a storefront in the International Hotel. The hotel provided low-cost housing for the disenfranchised and elderly of Chinatown and Manilatown. In 1968, real estate interests purchased the hotel in order to build a parking garage. The International Hotel struggle became a major tenant battle for low-cost housing in San Francisco. Many of the KSW artists, along with other community groups, became involved in this struggle through their art work and exhibits about the hotel.
Kearny Street Workshop’s posters and silkscreens, promoting local community groups and events, became a culturally expressive art form. The many artists involved in this archive formed a vehicle to help bring change to the conditions that surround their community, stressing the importance of art as a genuine reflection of our people and our society.
The struggles surrounding the artists and community during that time have not dissolved. Interdisciplinary artist and educator, Erina Alejo, presents an installation of their work from A Hxstory of Renting, which examines a visual culture of gentrification, displacement, and resilience of San Francisco / Yelamu experienced through Alejo’s lens as a third-generation renter. Alejo’s work offers current reflections that are shared with those of the KSW artists; unearthing this city’s memories as reminders of community resilience.
Written by Kim Arteche.