Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Presents “Conjuring Power: Roots & Trans Movements”

Ester Hernández, Nasty Liberty, 2017.

New exhibition explores queer and trans creativity as a force for cultural change, collective memory, and community power

February 3, 2026 – San Francisco, CA: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), in collaboration with the GLBT Historical Society, announces the opening of Conjuring Power: Roots & Futures of Queer & Trans Movements, a new exhibition on view March 13 through August 23, 2026. The exhibition explores how queer and trans communities have harnessed  creativity to build culture, sustain one another, and strengthen movements across generations, through a series of contemporary artworks and historical materials.

“Conjuring Power reflects the leading role queer and trans artists play in shaping culture and social change in San Francisco,” said Mari Robles, CEO of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. “This exhibition celebrates the power of citizens to gather, in joy and in pain, and imagine what comes next for a community.”

Rather than presenting a linear historical narrative, Conjuring Power frames queer and trans movements as ongoing and evolving. Conjuring Power moves across generations and forms, pairing personal testimony with public protest, and everyday acts of care with collective action, to illuminate the many ways queer and trans life has been documented, defended, and carried forward.

“Queer and trans movements have always drawn strength from creativity and imagination,” said Caro De Robertis, Co-Curator and award-winning author of seven books including So Many Stars: an Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color. “This exhibition honors those deep roots while opening space to think expansively about the futures we are still creating together.”

The exhibition features works by artists including Ester Hernández, Serge Gay Jr., Crystal Mason, and Tanya Wischerath, alongside a powerful selection of works inspired directly by queer and trans community archives. Developed in collaboration with community partners connected to the Castro and beyond, Conjuring Power includes historical materials and context provided by the Queer Ancestors Project (QAP) and the GLBT Historical Society, grounding the exhibition in San Francisco’s enduring legacy of queer and trans cultural leadership. Highlights from the QAP Archives include creative prints such as ACT UP and Die In (Alan Guttirez), White Nights Riot (Holly McHugh), Marsha Pay It No Mind Johnson (Queen Sen Sen), June Jordan, a Portrait (Percy Schumacher), and The Rainbow Road to Revolution (Violet Alexis Bea), among others, offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience these movement-rooted works together in the gallery. 

The exhibition also includes archival films such as Marlon Riggs’ iconic “Tongues Untied,” Tina V. Aguirre and Augie Robles’s enduring “¡Viva 16!”, and audio clips from De Robertis’s oral histories with the groundbreaking Elders Project. These works bring forward the stories of queer and trans elders, organizers, and cultural beacons through vivid portraiture and movement history, connecting past struggles and present-day calls for justice through art.

“San Francisco has always been a place where art and activism are inseparable,” said Tina V. Aguirre, 2025 Walter & Elise Haas Fund Creative Power Award Winner, Co-Curator and Cultural District Director of the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District. “Conjuring Power reflects that legacy while highlighting how queer and trans movements lead with magic to build resistance, resilience and hope. ”

The exhibition will be accompanied by public programs and community gatherings throughout its run, including an opening night celebration on March 13, 2026 featuring music by DJs La Femme Papi and Juanita MORE!

YBCA programs are made possible in part by Bloomberg Philanthropies, Blue Shield of California, Bob A. Ross Foundation, City and County of San Francisco, Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Malia Simonds, Mayor Daniel Lurie, The Ron Conway Family, Salesforce, San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, The Svane Family Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Yerba Buena Gardens Conservancy, Yerba Buena Partnership, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Board of Directors and Members. 

For more information visit www.ybca.org.

About YBCA:

Opened to the public in 1993, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) was founded as the cultural anchor of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens neighborhood. Our work spans the realms of contemporary art, performance, film, civic engagement, and public life. By centering artists as essential to social and cultural movement, YBCA is reimagining the role an arts institution can play in the communities it serves. For more information, visit ybca.org.

YBCA is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11:00am to 5:00pm. General admission is $10, and $5 for students and seniors.  Admission is free every Wednesday. For tickets and information, visit ybca.org.

###

For media inquiries:

Abby Margulies | (614) 827-5810 | [email protected]

Lauren Macmadu / (415) 350-1884 / [email protected]