Arts
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6 hours agoYou don't need a visa to experience the S.F. International Arts Festival
Visa acquisition challenges hinder foreign artists' participation in the San Francisco International Arts Festival.
I tried to create a private world in which my own, invented organisms evolved and developed like a personal flora and fauna from my imagination. Somehow they obeyed biological rules and grew and metamorphosed as if they were real.
In 2025, Dmae Lo Roberts embarked on a statewide storytelling experience focusing on personal stories from both artists and community members. These stories are a form of living oral history.
Macho Dancer was once deemed so controversial that its director had to smuggle it out of the country so it could see the light of day. Set within Manila's infamous red-light district, the film was seen as too risqué and possibly even dangerous due to its honest look at homosexuality, sex work, and drag queens, while also shining a light on government corruption.
Tom Prochaska distinguished himself in many mediums: He was a masterful printmaker, an intuitive painter, a builder of papier-mâché figures, a creator of fused glass panels, and graphite-on-paper drawings.
The Bandera Cimarrona, a flag conceived at the first edition of the International Summit of Afro-descendants in Puerto Rico in 2022, stands as a symbol of the resistance, the pursuit of freedom, and the strength of Afro-descendants on the island and throughout the Americas.
Keepers of the Steps, the living archive and cultural program at the United Irish Cultural Center dedicated to preserving generations of Bay Area Irish dancers, teachers, and families. Through stories, images, and lived experience, we'll reflect on how dance carries lineage, identity, and community forward.
Textiles are a window into the communities that created them, with every motif and line signalling a different memory, tradition or identity. Often seen as folk art, these pieces of embroidery and weaving bring together dozens of narrative threads, from Japan to South America. But nowhere is it more fraught with meaning than in Palestine.
From Super Bowl fun to the return of a beloved conductor and the Odo akland Interfaith Gospel Choir, there is a lot to see and hear in the Bay Area this weekend and beyond. A stroke of luck for Swims fans Teddy Swims is set to headline the Super Bowl LX Tailgate Concert presented by NetApp the NFL's top pregame party at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara on Feb. 8.
Join us at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on March 14 & 15, 2026 for an unforgettable cultural experience. This year, renowned Cantonese Opera artists from Hong Kong will present two full-length performances of beloved classic stories - a spectacular showcase you won't want to miss!
The Irish government will give 2,000 artists unrestricted weekly stipends in a program officials described as a "recognition, at government level, of the important role of the arts in Irish society." After a successful three-year pilot, the Irish government made its basic income program for artists permanent. Similar pilots have been launched here in the United States, but they're supported primarily by the nonprofit sector.
The only thing most people know about epiphytes, if they know about them at all, is that they're rootless. That's not quite true - they develop highly specialized root systems adapted to wherever they land. In Epiphytic Elucidations at Patel Brown Gallery, Calgary-based artist Marigold Santos takes this fact as more than a metaphor. The exhibition uses epiphytes - plants that grow on other plants without harming them - as a framework for the expansive ways diasporas form through material labor.
Last February, master of ceremonies Dennis Bowen (a Seneca elder) welcomed the reigning champion into the 2025 World Championship Hoop Dance Contest arena at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Thousands of spectators joined them to watch more than 100 dancers compete across the two-day event. Bowen announced Josiah Enriquez's (Pueblo of Pojoaque, Navajo, Isleta) accomplishments as a top place finisher several years running in the teen division and as the surprise winner in an unprecedented tiebreaking round in the adult division the year before.
As if demolishing the East Wing, gutting arts agencies, and slapping his name and face on several federal buildings weren't enough, the US president now wants to do away with a DC building known as the "Sistine Chapel of New Deal art." This week, we reported on a burgeoning campaign to save the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which houses murals by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, Seymour Fogel, and other major American artists. We will continue to follow this story.
"I rarely use the term collecting and collector," Hsu-Tang says. "We both see ourselves as messengers... I don't own these works of art. I'm here to be a temporary steward of these messages, and to pass on-it's my duty to connect the past, the present and the future."