Artists’ Television Access (ATA)

An exploration of the expansionist ideology of Manifest Destiny, its continuing impact on multicultural communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, as well as its legacies of inherited and perpetuated violence, trauma, addiction, and the outgrowths of resistance and resilience to Manifest Differently

Manifest Differently is a multifaceted project featuring 38 multigenerational artists and poets. Using literary, visual, and media arts storytelling in conjunction with public programming, the collaboration will interrogate the expansionist ideology of Manifest Destiny, its continuing impact on multicultural communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, its legacies of inherited and perpetuated violence, trauma, and addiction, and the outgrowth of resistance and resilience – giving fire to movements for social change. As recognized in Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons in 1983, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996, and others that have followed, we must acknowledge and witness the impacts of our history before we can move forward, otherwise the same injustices will be repeated, as we have seen most recently in the case of Israel’s genocidal treatment of Palestinians.

Storytelling is a powerful tool to help provide deep witness, compassion, and inspiration.

Manifest Differently was conceived and developed by poet/artist Kim Shuck and CAMP co-director/ artist / writer Megan Wilson and is co-curated by Shuck, Wilson, Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, Amy Berk, and Katayoun Bahrami with support from California historian Barbara Berglund Sokolov, CAMP communications director Veronica Torres, and humanities advisors Mary Jean Robertson, Kyoko Sato, Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Anita Chang, and David A.M Goldberg. Audiences were introduced to the history of Manifest Destiny and the forward vision to Manifest Differently through the lens of a diverse multigenerational team of artists and poets, whose histories and experiences include those of American Indian/Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, Southwest Asian, and North African (SWANA), and white/European American descent.

The project was exhibited in 2023/24 in collaboration with the following presenting partners – Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP,) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), Artists’ Television Access (ATA), Minnesota Street Project (MSP), San Francisco Public Library, Book Castle, the Beat Museum, Book Castle, San Francisco State University, and Stanford University.

Participating poets, artists, and humanities scholars include:

Poets: Aileen Cassinetto, Avotcja, Clara Hsu, Dena Rod, E.K. Keith, Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Genny Lim, Josiah Luis Alderete, Kim Shuck, Lauren Ito, Linda Noel, Lourdes Figueroa, Mahnaz Badihian, Maw Shein Win, MK Chavez, Stephen Meadows, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Tureeda Mikell, Voulette Hattar

Visual and Media Artists: Adrian Arias, Afatasi, Amy Berk, Anita Chang, Barbara Mumby-Huerta, Biko Eisen-Martin, Carolyn Castaño, Chris Gazaleh, Katayoun Bahrami, Kim Shuck, l. frank manriquez, Marcel Pardo Ariza, Megan Wilson, Rene Yung, Shaghayegh Cyrous, Shonna Alexander, Vaimoana Niumeitolu, Victoria Canby

Humanities Scholars: Dr. Anita Chang, Dr. David A.M. Goldberg, Dr. Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Dr. Kyoko Sato, Mary Jean Robertson

Photo Credits: Erin Feller, 2023/24

Carolyn Castaño

In Cali es Cali, or Cali is Cali, I play with two popular expressions: the first, Cali es Cali—an expression from my father’s hometown of Cali, Colombia, which is akin to the American adage, “There is no place like home;” the second is a nickname for California: “Cali”—a term popularized by LL Cool J in his 1988 hit song, “Going Back to Cali.” As a point of departure and inspiration, I use my late father’s photographic archive—comprised of 4,000 photographs, films, and videos—to consider the fragility and ephemerality of memory and identity. The photographs in the exhibition are juxtaposed next to drawings of the landscape (inspired by Von Humboldt’s landscapes and botanical studies) and considers the ways in which the land figures in the trajectory and memory of the migrant/ immigrant.

-Carolyn Castaño

Adrian Arias

Adrian Arias, Dear Angel Don’t Try To Colonize Me, Artists’ Television Access, Manifest Differently

Anita Chang

Thinking and Feeling with the Marshall Islands is a window installation created by Anita Chang and featuring the works of her Communication students at Cal State East Bay in her 2022 Ecomedia course. Chang brings her work-in-progress documentary Her Excellency on women leaders, with the video poem of Nang Hliang, memes of Cindy Kim, and the poetry of Brooklyn Aguilar, Adriana Fimbres, Lyanne Nisperos, David Oronos, Alexis Peck, and Alexandria Sepulveda. Together, these works explore what it means to think and feel with the Marshall Islands and broadly, as inspired by poet scholar Craig Santos Perez, the “Anthopocene (Pacific) islands.” How do we also imagine what decolonizing the Anthropocene might look like in order to manifest differently?

-Anita Chang

Afatasi The Artist

In BLACK SPACE, Afatasi The Artist hones her fine art skills, her love of Afrofuturism, to dispel the progressive myth of her hometown of San Francisco, while honoring and highlighting spaces historically held by Black people within the city. Beautifully photographed in San Francisco’s historic Fillmore and Bayview-Hunter’s Point districts, by film maker/cinematographer/photographer extraordinaire, Jean Melesaine, SPACE in this work has dual meaning. It centers two black women Afronauts wearing SPACE-suits created by Afatasi. Conical shapes reoccur within both suits, and are inspired by NASA rockets and jet propulsion engineering, which propelled man to the moon. The helmets created by Afatasi as well; complete with Sāmoan motif cutouts, (a nod to Afatasi’s Polynesian heritage), and equipped with special effects lighting, the helmets speak to bright lives of black residents, forced to live in the shadows. The backing track, was created specifically for this piece using sounds from space provided by NASA’s Voyager Missions to the Exoplanets, and Mars Rover Missions, as well as the sounds of passing comets, and meteorite showers. Capturing spaces dedicated to black historical figures, as well as historical events, the piece in its entirety speaks to how BLACK SPACE in San Francisco has been minimized, taken; forgotten. It uses quotes from influential Black San Francisco leaders, as well as dialogue from the KQED documentary film, “Take This Hammer”, featuring the Black influential writer, James Baldwin. This work seeks to highlight, that not only have things not changed much in San Francisco from 1960, but San Francisco has always harbored hatred for its Black residents, and even more recently, has pushed them to the brink of extinction. Each oppressive system within the institution has created one small step for racism, and one giant leap for white supremacy. Afatasi sews traces of the of the city’s black experience together; BLACK SPACE is vital for the future of San Francisco.