Thu November 21st Closed
The YBCA 10
In April 2021, we announced the YBCA 10, a cohort of artists the organization would work with in deep relationships over the course of a year, to allow their creative practice to lead us towards a more equitable future.
Over the past nine months, the artists that make up the 10—dancers, photographers, wordsmiths, architects, technologists, farmers, and multidisciplinary practitioners—have been working with each other and in community to imagine and design creative prototypes that impact community health and well-being, by addressing racial justice and climate equity.
While these issues are undeniably urgent, creative practice also needs time. This is an entirely new way of working for us as an organization *and* for these powerful artists, all happening at a time when deep care is required more than ever. After months of listening, movement workshops, and community conversations, it is now time to open up their process to you—our community.
YBCA 10 Artist Cohort
Read & Watch
Go deeper with the YBCA 10
YBCA 10 Podcast
At the intersection of art and activism stands the 10 – a multidisciplinary cohort of artists brought together by YBCA. This podcast is dedicated to highlighting each member of the YBCA 10, making space for pivotal conversations about their cultural motivations, civic engagement, and how each are designing creative prototypes that directly address racial justice and climate equity for the betterment of community health and well-being.
Where to listen:
In this episode, we continue our extended conversations with YBCA 10 artist Leticia Hernández-Linares. Joining her in this intimate dialogue is YCBA Creative Cohort Artist Caleb Duarte. Listen to hear the group flesh out conceptual ideas around art, healing through storytelling, memory work, and being historians of our own history through dialogue.
YBCA 10 Podcast: Alex J. Bledsoe & Cara Page
In this episode, we reconnect with YBCA 10 member Alex J. Bledsoe, a multidisciplinary artist whose work focuses on Black liberation and dismantling exploitative systems. Paired with her is the eminent and renowned Cara Page, Black Queer Feminist cultural/memory worker, curator, and organizer. Together we discuss stories of healing, creation of sacred spaces, art as a supplement of healing, grief, and collective care and much, much more.
YBCA 10 Podcast: Nikiko Masumoto and Galería de la Raza
In this episode, we reconnect with organic farmer, memory keeper, and YBCA 10 artist Nikiko Masumoto. We hear an update on the Plant Library, the prototype collaboration between Nikiko and fellow YBCA 10 artist Darryl Ratcliff. We also welcome to the table Galería de la Raza, a non-profit dedicated to promoting Xicanx/Latinx art and culture.
YBCA 10 Podcast: Hasain Rasheed & Fay Darmawi
We reconnect with acclaimed photographer a member of the 10 Hasain Rasheed and meet Fay Darmawi – Founder and Executive Producer of the SF Urban Film Fest.
YBCA 10 Podcast: Binta Ayofemi
“As a visual artist I really think that I’m most inspired by composers…In my practice, I try to take a few notes that you don’t normally recognize as being blended and create a new chord.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: Dr. Ayodele Nzinga
“When I discovered the power in words, was when I began to take the idea of making art and make worlds and understand that’s what it was – world making – that it was powerful. Really, really powerful.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: My-Linh Le
“When I look at turfing by itself […] it’s already a whole database. It’s already a genre of study. We think that scientific method is the only way of knowing something, and that’s just simply not true. Our bodies know so much.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: Deanna Van Buren
“I think there’s been great impact in at least having people think that we can be, as architects, we can be folks who address social change rather than propping up systems of oppressions, which is what we’ve been doing since the dawn of time, even to change systems like mass incarceration.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: Hasain Rasheed
“It’s a constant desire to want to be better…When I hear the other artists in the 10 talk, I feel motivated to learn more. And not only about myself, but about them and their art and the value of working in community.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: Dorothy Santos
“A lot of my own practice, I make things based on feeling because sometimes that’s where the greatest kernels or nuggets come from.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: Leticia Hernández-Linares
“…this has been one of the biggest honors and gifts that I’ve received and the timing of it couldn’t have been better. I think it’s a gift to be able to have all this time with such an amazing group, not just the 10, but everybody who’s part of this.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: Alex J. Bledsoe
“We have a lot to learn from one another, especially when we’re tapping into our ancestral roots and our understanding of the land and our connections with land.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: Darryl Ratcliff
“Sometimes I say I do the work of justice because I’m actually really interested in being free. And every time I try to be free, I run into these structures that keep getting the way of me being as free as I want to be.”
YBCA 10 Podcast: Nikiko Masumoto
“I want the people who work the land, the people who feed us, to be valued.”
The Creative Cohort
The Creative Cohort is a group of 20 experts of multiple disciplines who will advise, mentor and provide feedback to the YBCA 10 artists through the process of conceiving, building and refining their prototypes. In this program, collaboration is essential at all levels in developing projects and is part of the evolution that emphasizes YBCA’s commitment to building transformative relationships with artists and investing in them to develop the deepest work we can together.
