Markings [Bayview + Mission], 2014

markings

...nos besamos por primera vez fuera del Camaleón [ahora Amnesia]. Todavía nos besamos 20 años + 5 desalojos después.
...we first kissed outside the Chameleon [now Amnesia]. We still kiss 20 years + 5 evictions later.
...I had my first kiss as a gay man.
...tomé mi primera clase de baile con 3 generaciones de mujeres latinas.
...I took my first dance class with 3 generations of Latina women.
...I rode my first bus #64.
...Bebo café … la misma taza de café durante 17 años.
...I drink coffee…the same cup of coffee for 17 years.
...He visto a la gente empujando hacia atrás + resistiendo en los últimos años.
...I have seen the people on this corner pushing back + resisting over the years.
...I feel alive. Like I'm following my dreams.
...un montón de chicos pasan el rato y juegan dados en la noche. Yo vivo en esta esquina y su presencia es una vista agradable tarde en la noche cuando el resto de la zona es inquietantemente vacía.
...a bunch of guys hang out and play dice at night. I live on this corner and their presence is a welcome sight late at night when the rest of the area is eerily empty.
...learned how to ride a bike and made good friends.
...solía ser un lugar que podíamos caminar con nuestras familias. Perder murales. Ahora me siento menospreciada.
...used to be a place we could walk with our families. Losing murals. Now I feel looked down on.
...I am listening.
...Hago compras y paso el rato. Me recuerda a las Filipinas.
...I shop and hang out. Reminds me of the Philippines.
...Vi algunas películas mexicanas con mi Padre.
...I watched some Mexican movies with my Father.
...Encontré el amor, vida, la verdad, amigos.
...I found love, life, truth, friends.
..un grupo de ranas cantan en la noche.
...a group of frogs sing at night.

Markings is an on-going project in which people are invited to fill out tags printed with “This is where…” – with their memories in relation to places. The tags are then added to flags and then photographed. This is the third in the Markings series, and was shown as part of the Place/Displaced’ exhibition at SOMArts

Markings [Bayview + Mission], 2014
social engagement action, C-prints, found frames
This piece is continued from a previous work for Mission/DOTD. People were invited to share their memories of places in the Mission and Bayview on tags that were written with “This is where…”. The tags were added to small flags which were placed in front of each place connected to their memory, and then photographed. The photographs are framed with found frames and hung salon style to reflect the value of places and the intimate feelings that people have for them.

SF Chronicle article about the work:

chron

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to turn pain into something beautiful. We all have our own ways of dealing with pain and loss and trauma, but I’ve never found any worth in most of the sayings that we repeat to each other in times of stress. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” for example, or “Pain can be cathartic,” strikes me as good embroidery and bad faith.

My experience with suffering is that it ennobles no one. Most wounds never become wisdom.

I am always thinking about these things, but of course they came alive this week. So I decided to take a break from looking at the latest unarmed black kid to be killed in the street, and to find a few things that channel pain into something that feels satisfying:

2. “Markings”

For “Markings,” also in “Place/Displaced,” the artist asked residents of the Mission and the Bayview to write down a memory of their neighborhoods on a small flag. She then placed the flags in front of the places that were being remembered, and photographed them. It’s a simple idea that gains resonance as you look at more and more of the flags, and take on more and more of their memories.

It’s the “memories that make a building into a ‘place,’” said Laurie Halsey Brown of senseofplace LAB. She’s collected more than 100 flags, and said that “the responses were all amazing — personal, funny, insightful, intimate.”

The Mission and the Bayview have experienced the highest spike in housing costs during the city’s current boom; many of the residents’ beloved places have already disappeared or won’t be around for much longer. “Markings” is a good reminder that we may lose the buildings we love, but through memory we will carry them along.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@caillemillner

Below are images of an aspect of Markings for DOTD, 2014 was an extension of a social engagement action as part of the Plaza 16 Coalition March/Festival in the Mission on October 4, 2014. People were invited to fill out a tag with “This is where..” printed on it. Their place/memory was then photographed, printed and framed [using frames found in that community]. The piece is installed on the inside of the large ‘home’ in the SOMarts gallery space to refer to the importance of home being a part of the community that surrounds it. Throughout the exhibition, participants filled out tags of their place/memory, which was photographed and added to the installation.

(below are the the first and third projects that the Chronicle staff writer discusses in her piece):

1. “Ellis Act Tag Sale”

San Francisco has had many crises over gentrification, but the issue felt particularly acute this year. A lot of local artists made pieces that touched on the loss of home in 2014, for good reason — if they weren’t being pushed out, their galleries were.

Right now, there’s a big exhibition at SOMArts called “Place/Displaced.” The exhibition, which was done with the Bayview Opera House, is bright and rollicking and celebratory; it’s drawn the attention of lots of people who don’t normally go to galleries.

That’s great, but it was the two subtler pieces in the show that caught my eye. The first of these is “Ellis Act Tag Sale,” which artist Ako Jacintho, 42, created after going to, well, an Ellis Act tag sale.

“I didn’t realize it at the time,” said Jacintho, with a laugh. “I just saw this woman in my neighborhood in the Mission, who had spread all of these things on a blanket on the street. There are so many people doing that every weekend. I started bargaining with her, thinking that her prices were too high. And then I heard her say to another customer that she’d been Ellis Acted.”

The experience led to Jacintho’s piece in the exhibition, which is just what it sounds like — a blanket spread on the ground, with goods displayed for sale. It’s the type of spread that we all pass every day, but what lifts it up is not just the experience of seeing it in the gallery space but the obvious care that Jacintho took with selection and placement.

“When we decide to sell our things, we’re telling our stories,” Jacintho said. “Everything in that exhibit is something that belongs to me, that means something to me.”

I didn’t know any of the story behind the piece when I saw it, but that’s why it works. Jacintho doesn’t push anyone into an opinion. Walking around the things that make up his life, I felt space for many possibilities and many stories. It’s a piece that expands feeling, instead of constricting it.

3. “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”

I was skeptical when a friend of mine sent me this film trailer. The title sounded like the kind of (slightly) exaggerated headline that’s designed to go viral on the Internet, and “Last Black Man” is getting a lot of attention on the Internet.

But for once, that attention is richly deserved.

“Last Black Man” tells the true story of 20-year-old Jimmie Fails IV, a San Francisco native. We follow Fails as he skateboards through the city. As we swoop up and down hills, Fails tells the story of his grandfather, a war veteran who was given the opportunity to move into a home in the Fillmore that was vacated because of the Japanese internment program.

Fails’ grandfather didn’t like that. So he built his own Victorian in Duboce Park, which the family later lost because of hard times. Fails has spent much of his life in foster homes and homeless shelters, but he didn’t forget his family’s history — or the home.

“It was the only place I had a family life,” he told me, and the movie is about his quest to get the house back.

Fails worked on the trailer along with 24-year-old filmmaker Joe Talbot. Like so many other filmmakers these days, they’re hoping that the trailer will get enough attention for them to get funding for the rest of the movie. If you’re looking to make a local arts donation for the holidays, find out more here: http://on.fb.me/1zYOCFc.

This movie, Talbot says, “is our way to make sense of what’s happening to us as San Francisco natives.”