An essay by Adriana Camarena about affordable housing, police brutality, homelessness, art and activism. The author was commissioned by the YBCA to write a response to the exhibit “Take This Hammer”, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), March 11th to August 16th, 2016 (Guest Curator: Christian L. Frock) and present work at the event: […]
#OctoberTogether, More than just baseball… Dedicated to Bay Area families victims of police brutality and their supporters I. October Spirit II. Twilight III. Tipping the playing field IV. Unaccountable Murders V. Giants for Justice VI. October Together, the new normal… VII. List of Bay Area homicide victims by police I. October Spirit “October Together” is […]
On a sunny summer afternoon in Dolores Park, a bottle scavenger in a red cardigan picked her way through the partying crowd. She was minding her business, which is picking bottles. She wove in and out of techno dancers and picnickers, barely given notice. When acknowledged, she was identified as one of the others. That […]
A Watershed of Tears: Arroyo de los Dolores (extract 1/5) Ocean fog protected the Bay from European discovery, until 1769, when explorer Gaspar de Portolá viewed the body of water from a mountaintop. Six years later, on August 5, 1775, the ship San Carlos sailed through the golden gate under a moonlit sky. The Huimen […]
Refugio Nieto and Elvira Rodriguez (now Elvira Nieto) were born a year apart in the little town of Tarimoro, Guanajuato, known for its agricultural and handmade brick businesses. Refugio was the eldest child in a family of eight, and Elvira the fourth in a family of nine children. He was born into a family of […]
A photo series of street altars as public expressions of grief in the Mission District.
Homicides In The Mission (2008), Stats Part I Youth homicide is the leading cause of death among youth ages 15-24 in San Francisco. The year that Adriana Camarena arrived to the Mission (2008), 19 people were killed in the Mission, primarily with use of firearms: Name Age Date of Incident Aproximate Location Justin Lee 40 […]
Over the last three decades, several waves of tech booms and housing bubbles have eroded the character of this multi-racial, predominantly Latino, working class neighborhood. As lower income workers are pushed out of their homes by the shenanigans of private property markets catering to high earning professionals, the cultural diversity of the Mission is supplanted […]