SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- SF Camerawork announced it will open a new space at Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture (FMCAC) this September. The 1,900-square-foot space features a large ground-floor gallery and a mezzanine dedicated to the organization’s administrative offices. Previously located on Market Street, the opening at Fort Mason Center reflects the organization’s ongoing commitment to being an integral part of the San Francisco arts community, and to introducing new audiences to thought-provoking and boundary-pushing photography.

Located in Fort Mason Center’s historic Landmark Building A and featuring panoramic views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the new headquarters for SF Camerawork will allow the organization to further its engagement with photographic artists and arts community members, highlighting the long history of San Francisco and the surrounding areas as an essential place for photography. With more space dedicated to exhibitions, the organization will be able to work with a wider range of artists, and to deepen its impact by showing the work of emerging and early-career Bay Area artists. SF Camerawork will open its new location on September 17, with a solo exhibition by Bay Area-based artist Kija Lucas. KIJA LUCAS, A Taxonomy of Belonging will feature work from Lucas’s nine-year project In Search of Home, a series that explores the emigration patterns of her family using photographs of plant clippings, rocks, and other objects.




“Our purpose is to provoke discovery, experimentation, and exchange through photographic exhibitions and experiences,” said SF Camerawork Board President Michelle Branch. “Opening with Kija Lucas’s exhibition speaks to our particular interest in engaging with the work of local, emerging artists who use photographic practice and technique to address timely and complex socio-political issues. As an organization committed to education, we are especially excited to be a part of the vibrant arts ecosystem at Fort Mason Center, and to have access to state-of-the-art educational facilities where we can invite in our communities for seminars and public events, in addition to our exhibition programming.”

The inaugural exhibition, A Taxonomy of Belonging features a collection of photographs that Lucas created in opposition to Carl Linnaeus’s racial taxonomy. Traveling through thirteen states, Lucas gathered cultivated plants, weeds, rocks, and other found natural objects that relate to her family’s history and emigration pattern and created photographic scans. Questioning how we choose what is considered “natural,” “beautiful,” and “useful,” Lucas treated the cultivated plants, weeds, native, and non-native species she gathered equally, challenging the scientific framework society has inherited from Linnaeus. Extrapolating from her work with the natural world, Lucas interrogates the way that the taxonomy passed down by Linnaeus misrepresents Othered communities and continues to perpetuate damaging racist stereotypes. In doing so, she works to situate her family’s personal history in the United States.

“We are delighted to welcome SF Camerawork to the Fort Mason Center campus, where it joins a longstanding creative community of arts and cultural organizations dedicated to artistic excellence and public access to the product of that excellence,” said Mike Buhler, President and CEO, FMCAC. “For 45 years, SF Camerawork has advanced creative boundaries in its exhibitions and support of artists, and we look forward to seeing what develops here in their new permanent home, a place that has served as fertile ground for creative expression for nearly 50 years.”

From its pre-colonial use by the Ramaytush Ohlone people to its role as a major military port of embarkation to its current life as an arts and cultural hub, FMCAC has long been a gathering place for cultural, intellectual, and political exchange. Its 13-acre campus – designated as a National Historic Landmark District and part of the Golden Gate Recreational Area – is home to more than two dozen arts, cultural, culinary, educational, and retail entities, which benefit from affordable long- and short-term rental spaces, stunning waterfront views, and proximity to other San Francisco waterfront landmarks and attractions. SF Camerawork joins a coterie of acclaimed arts and cultural residents at FMCAC including the For-Site Foundation, Haines Gallery, Magic Theatre, and the American Indian Cultural District.