APAture 2023: Unearthing, a film showcase

Screenings & Films

APAture 2023: Unearthing, a film showcase

In partnership with Kearny Street Workshop |

October 29, 2023, 2–4:30 PM

Co-presented by SF Urban Film Fest and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
feat. Adamu Chan

SF Urban Film Fest and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts are proud to co-present, Unearthing, a film showcase featuring Adamu Chan, as a part of Kearny Street Workshop’s (KSW) annual multi-disciplinary arts festival, APAture. Along with Chan, the festival will showcase works from artists Yasmine Gomez, Tracy Nguyen, Jinji S., Sabina Kariat, and Jalena Keane-Lee.

Curated by BAN9 Curatorial Counsel member Gina Basso, the ongoing BAN9 Film series will span the entirety of the exhibition, featuring acclaimed Bay Area filmmakers, collectives, and new media artists. Offerings will vary monthly, reflecting BAN9’s curatorial themes and diving into the breadth and depth of the Bay Area’s vibrant film scene by highlighting the local organizations and individuals who contribute to the shape and form of the region’s rich cinematic landscape.

Adamu Chan

Adamu Chan is a filmmaker, writer, and community organizer from the Bay Area who was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison during one of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the country. He produced numerous short films while incarcerated, using his vantage point and experience as an incarcerated person as a lens to focus the viewer’s gaze on issues related to social justice. Chan draws inspiration and energy from the voices of those directly impacted, and seeks to empower them to reshape the narratives that have been created about them through film.

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SF Urban Film Fest

SF Urban Film Fest gathers a diverse, engaged audience and uses the power of storytelling to spark discussion and civic engagement around urban issues. The collective asks what it means to live together in the city and make urban planning more equitable and inclusive.

SF Urban Film Fest stages events throughout the City. Programming includes film screenings coupled with wide-ranging discussions, storytelling workshops aimed at civically-minded professionals, community members, and advocates, and place-focused gatherings connecting physical and social spaces in cities.

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Kearny Street Workshop

Founded in 1972, during the height of the Asian American cultural movement, Kearny Street Workshop (KSW) is the oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary arts organization in the country. They offer classes and workshops, salons, and student presentations, as well as professionally curated and produced exhibitions, performances, readings, and screenings. KSW makes artists out of community members and community members out of artists. For the past 45 years, KSW has nurtured the creative spirit, offered an important platform for new voices to be heard, and connected artists with community.

Gina Basso

Gina Basso is a San Francisco-based independent film programmer of experimental, artist-made, and non-fiction film and video works and thematic narrative film series. She has organized film programs for local cinemas including The Roxie Theater, The Castro Theater, and Alamo Drafthouse New Mission Theater. She has curated programs for McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, Design Within Reach, Hunter’s Point Shipyard and the Northwest Film Forum and is the former film curator for San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In her creative practice, she uses video to explore transitional or altered states of being. Through moving collage, handmade animation, and sound she draws on a rich tradition of experimentation with various forms, materials, and processes, combining found and original footage to harness the energy of poetic montage. Her video work has been presented at CROSSROADS Festival, Artist Television Access, HAXAN Film Festival, and Antimatter Experimental Film Festival.

Bay Area Now 9 is curated by Martin Strickland, Director of Curatorial Initiatives, and Fiona Ball, independent curator; under the artistic leadership of Amy Kisch, Head of Art + Public Programming; and developed with the inaugural YBCA Curatorial Counsel of curators, artists, activists, and cultural workers working across the Bay Area’s creative disciplines and communities: Erina Alejo, Gina Basso, Jason Bayani, Mina Girgis, Candace Huey, José Ome Navarrete Mazatl, Aay Preston Myint, and Lehua Taitano.

The BAN9 YBCA project team also includes Yoni Asega, Manager of Exhibition Design; David Tim, Head Preparator, Project Design; Bella Manfredi, Senior Preparator, Multimedia + Graphics; O Soo Vegh, Exhibition Project Manager + Registrar; Rea Lynn de Guzman, Manager of Public + Educational Programs; Flavia Mora, Public + Educational Programs Coordinator; and Cori Lucas, Community + Program Event Manager.

YBCA is grateful to the preparator team who made this exhibition possible: Isaiah Acosta, Amy Bergstein, Micha Dudgeonwood, Owen Goodwin, German Hoyle, Calvin Jones, Linden Julien-Lehr, Lauren Kenwood, Benjamin Leon, Maren Mouhanna, Éamon McGivern, Christian Neill, David Prigge, and Kelsey Westphal.

YBCA Programs are made possible in part by the City and County of San Francisco, MacKenzie Scott, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC), #StartSmall, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Marilyn Conrad Trust, New England Foundation for the Arts, California Arts Council, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, William G. Irwin Charity Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, The Sato Foundation, Gaia Fund, Office of Mayor London N. Breed, San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Headlands Center for the Arts, ICA San Francisco, Bay Area Mind and Music Society, GitHub, Harvey and Leslie Wagner Foundation, McNabb Foundation, Raymond James Charitable, Savant Group Charitable Foundation, The Building Works, Fremont Group Foundation, and YBCA Members.

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