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The Continuous Thread

Published 10/8/2019, All Photos by Rye Purvis unless otherwise noted.

The Continuous Thread: Celebrating Our Interwoven Histories, Identities, and Contributions opened Friday, October 4th at the SFAC Main Gallery located in the War Memorial Veteran’s Building of San Francisco. The exhibit curated by Carolyn Melenani Kurali’l (Native Hawaiian/Apache) features photography by Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Taskigi/Diné), Britt Bradley (Algonquin/Hispanic/Irish) and Jean Melesaine (Samoan). Community representation against a backdrop of the reclaimed space where a discriminatory monument once stood make for an exhibit’s emphasis on the American Indian Urban Experience.

Photographs of over 150 Indigenous community members line the wall front and center as you walk into the SFAC’s Main Gallery. Warm portraits against black backgrounds take up five rows of portraits plentiful portraying Indigenous and Native youth, adult and elder alike. The photographs, taken by Jean Melesaine, a local documentary photographer, are both soft and stark. Located next to the photos a two-page list states every person’s name and tribal affiliation: A name to each portrait in recognition.

Melesaine’s line of portraits, 2019.

Individual Portraits list of names, 2019.

Recognition and reclamation reverberate through the exhibit walls, as the photography work focus on portraits taken in response to the removal of San Francisco Civic Center’s “Early Days” statue.

Early Days, a bronze statue located between SFPL and the Asian Art Museum, featured a Plains Native American man in a defenseless position on the ground as a missionary and vaquero towered over him. After nearly two and a half decades of protests and appeals, the 124-year-old statue Early Days was removed in September 2018. In April 2019, Melesaine alongside Tsinhnahjinnie and Bradley photographed the community in response to both the removal of Early Days and a celebration of the Indigenous community of the Bay Area thriving here and now.

(Left) Phoenix Lara, Photograph by Jean Melesaine. (Right) Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) Photograph by Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, 2019.

Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie’s large scale group portraits powerfully showcase community members sitting and standing on the Early Days vacant monument plinth. The colorful portraits combine individuals together in what feels like a superhero aesthetic for the Native community. Titles such as “Strong-Hearted Women,” “Emerging Leaders: American Indian Youth,” “American Indian Scholars” and “Traditional Dance – The Art of Maintaining Strong and Vibrant Indigenous Communities” give sightline to Tsinhnahjinnie’s calculated collective of individuals. Next to an arrangement of 8 rectangular color photographs titled “Our Interwoven Histories, Identities and Contributions” a five-page document lists the individuals and their bios in a who’s who of the Native community. Recognition of each person’s achievements, interests and endeavors permeate from not only the portraits but the words as well.

Our Interwoven Histories, Identities and Contributions, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, 2019.

Strong-Hearted Women, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, 2019.

Britt Bradley’s black and white photography remain both memorizing and unapologetic. In a large-scale photograph titled “Practitioners of the Arts” five artists stare directly to the viewer, each artist representing various artistic backgrounds and mediums. One can’t help thinking of this portrait existing from decades ago as the photograph process exudes a timelessness. Bradley��s prints are made from a collodion wet plate process, a photographic technique created in the mid 1800’s. From Bradley’s website, Bradley explains “Much of collodion practician, both modern and historical, is a perpetual representation of the white male gaze. A perspective that has not truly shifted since the medium’s conception over 150 years ago. I am interested in how a medium that has continually been used to exploit marginalized voices, could instead be adapted to empower.” (1)

Bradley’s wet plate technique indeed takes nod to a time that also produced the Early Days statue of 1894. Using collodion process, the portraits take the viewer to an alternate version of the early days of San Francisco, presenting individuals empowered in their recognition and in their individual stories of monumental proportion.

Practitioners of the Arts, Britt Bradley, 2019.

Activists, Artists, Entrepreneurs, Students, Elders, People are presented in front of the viewer. The exhibition pushes past oftentimes what Museums and Fine Art Institutions displayed in the past: photographs of Indigenous and Native American community members without names, without stories, and without recognition. The displaying of each individual snippet of the participant’s background breaks past this practice, giving full recognition and an appreciation for the individual in one of the most empowering exhibits I’ve witnessed featuring Native and Indigenous artists of the Bay Area.

SFAC Director, Community Investments Barbara Mumby-Huerta speaks to a crowded room during the opening reception Friday, October 4th.

The artwork in Continuous Thread wasn’t the only highlight of the exhibition, the catering by Wahpepah’s Kitchen had a consistent presence of people surrounding their food for the entire reception on October 4th. Wahpepah Kitchen is run by Chef Crystal Wahpepa, a Chef recently featured on Food Network’s Chopped tv show. The Acorn squash with maple dish made for a vibrant and delicious display, amongst other dishes based on Wahpepa’s Kickapoo heritage. It is a wonder that there is not a restaurant location for such cuisine given the popularity at the reception (maybe soon? hopefully!).

Wahpepa Kitchen food display at the opening reception Friday October 4th.

Outside of the SFAC’s Main Gallery in the Café Valor, the exhibit “Wounds Many: Portraits of the Northern Ute” showcases work by Keith Secola. Up and coming Artist Keith Secola (Mino Mashkiki Wish Kang. Ute Indian Tribe/Bois Forte Chippewa) fresh off a Fellowship at the Kala Art Institute premiered screenprints highlighting members of the Northern Ute community. Secola’s silkscreen works vibrate off the walls with their engaging layers of the printed image on top of deconstructed American history books.

Cesspooch Family, Keith Secola, 2019. Silkscreen on found book covers.

Ramone Cesspooch, Keith Secola, 2018. Silkscreen on found book covers.

The Continuous Thread Exhibition is on view until December 14th at the SFAC Main Gallery, 401 Van Ness Ave in the Veterans Building.

The Individual Portraits by Melesaine concurrently will be projected nightly from October 4-11th onto both the Asian Art Museum and SF Public Library at the location of the now removed “Early Days” statue.

Projections on to the SFPL.

Artist’s portraits next to the entrance of SFAC Main Gallery.

I end with a quote from the exhibit by Chief Avol Looking Horse of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nations:

“Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that you yourself are essential to this world. Understand both the blessing and the burden of that. You yourself are desperately needed to save the soul of this world. Did you think you were put here for something less? In a Sacred Hoop of Life, there is no beginning and no ending.”

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SFAC Continuous Thread Press Release:

https://www.sfartscommission.org/experience-art/exhibitions/continuous-thread

Wahpepah’s Kitchen:

https://www.wahpepahskitchen.com/

More info on Keith Secola’s exhibit:

https://www.sfartscommission.org/experience-art/exhibitions/wounds-many-portraits-northern-ute

#jeanmelesaine #sanfranciscoartscommission #brittbradley #MelenaniKurali’l #hulleahtsinhnahjinnie #sfac #keithsecola #continuousthread

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