Jeremy Rourke, still from 'You're Not Listening.' (Courtesy of the artist and Shapeshifters Cinema)
Since October 2023, there’s been more activity than usual in Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ screening room, where independent programmer Gina Basso (formerly of SFMOMA) has organized a rotating film series to accompany the museum’s regional survey Bay Area Now 9. Partnerships with SF Cinematheque, Canyon Cinema, Kearny Street Workshop and California Newsreel have brought an exciting array of locally made, experimental, contemporary and historical films to a space that’s been underutilized since the sudden dismissal of YBCA’s entire film staff in 2018.
Local film buffs had hoped this revival could become permanent, dreaming of regular film programming at YBCA even after the run of BAN 9.
But now the screening room sits quiet once again, with Leah Rosenberg’s newly commissioned work, Color in Twelve Parts, cut short in the middle of a live performance on Feb. 15, the museum’s response to eight BAN 9 artists altering their work in a pro-Palestinian protest action. YBCA kept its doors shut for a solid month.
Yasmeen Abedifard, still from ‘Gharbzadegi,’ 2019. (Courtesy of the artist and Shapeshifters Cinema)
“It became, how could we take this program that we worked hard on and we designed — how could we do something as a response not only to what YBCA did,” Basso says, “but how could we raise money and give it to Gaza?” (Proceeds from the night’s ticket sales will go towards humanitarian aid in Gaza.)
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Basso took a collaborative approach to much of the film programming for BAN 9, but in this instance, the artists have created something else altogether. “They’ve really got this energy and excitement of working together,” Basso says. “In this iteration I’ve been very on the outer rings of this endeavor.” She and Kathleen Maguire, the former director of public and educational programs at YBCA, will be present on Saturday for a post-screening talk with the artists.
Lydia Greer, from a live performance of ‘Robber Bridegroom.’ (Courtesy of the artist and Shapeshifters Cinema)
The relocation to Shapeshifters is one way unsurprising (Quillian is the programming director for the microcinema), but Basso would love for this trend to continue. She hopes to find the other programs — including Rosenberg’s half-seen commission — new homes as well. The film series was originally scheduled to run for the length of BAN 9, through May 5.
How YBCA might now fill that screening room is an open question. The artists and filmmakers Basso was working with on future programming also no longer want to show at YBCA. “There’s trepidation for sure,” she says. “They wanted to stand in solidarity with the [BAN 9] artists.” For Basso, working for YBCA on a hyper-local level, collaborating with Bay Area artists, distributors, programmers and archives, is just no longer possible.
“To lose the opportunity of that space and that place for film, again,” she sighs, referencing the 2018 “haitus” of YBCA’s in-house program. “It was getting there and people were like, ‘Yay, it’s back!’”
But when our large local arts institutions flounder, it’s the artist-run spaces like Shapeshifters that match their mission statements with actions — and can provide space for the conversations that moments like these require.
