{"id":750945,"date":"2026-07-08T17:51:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/750945\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T17:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T17:51:20","slug":"artists-are-filling-sf-with-monuments-to-ordinary-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/750945\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists Are Filling SF With Monuments to Ordinary People"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the weeks of protests following the murder of George Floyd, monuments across the country became the focus of intense, righteous energy. For too long, the demonstrators argued, these representations of oppression and violence \u2014 sometimes, of outright sedition \u2014 had presided over public spaces, warping our understanding of America\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

In some instances, the statues had been the subject of years of organizing and petitions for removal, to no avail. So in 2020, people took matters into their own hands<\/a>, either tagging the monuments\u2019 pedestals, pouring red paint on them or toppling the statues altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"manA team of artist ambassadors works on \u2018Embassy of the Refugee\u2019 in San Francisco\u2019s Fulton Plaza.<\/p>\n

\nA monument to invisible labor\n<\/p>\n

The Civic Center is home to nearly a quarter of the city\u2019s monuments, the most prominent of which sits between the main library and the Asian Art Museum. Created in 1894 by sculptor Frank Happersberger, the Pioneer Monument tells a selective and glorified story of California\u2019s founding, illustrated by the white Americans (plus a few Spanish and Mexican leaders) who conquered the land and its Indigenous people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For decades, Native American activists called for the removal of one especially offensive component of the monument. Early Days depicted Jun\u00edpero Serra \u201cconverting\u201d a supine Indigenous man (depicted as a Plains Indian). A triumphant vaquero stood by with his arm raised.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2018, after successful lobbying, Early Days was removed<\/a>. Even so, according to a 2023 community survey by the Monuments and Memorials Advisory Committee (MMAC, a precursor to the Shaping Legacy project), the Pioneer Monument remains one of the city\u2019s least-liked monuments.<\/p>\n

The site\u2019s contentious history provides a rare opportunity for an artist to confront such historical symbols of power. And Kaleb Duarte<\/a> is up to the task.<\/p>\n

Currently, a delicate scaffolding and scrim sits around the center of the Pioneer Monument, obscuring the view of its bronze reliefs. Since early June, Duarte and a team of \u201cartist ambassadors\u201d have been working on site, covering the metal poles of the scaffolding with strips of gold mylar. They are, in effect, gilding the structure. The piece, titled Embassy of the Refugee, is part of an ongoing series.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scaffold is an ugly thing that you try to not look at when you\u2019re looking at architecture,\u201d Duarte says on a windy farmers market day, \u201cbut I think it represents the worker and the forgotten.\u201d Duarte\u2019s collaborators are from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico; the participants have been in the United States anywhere from two to 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"twoArtist ambassadors work on \u2018Embassy of the Refugee\u2019 in Fulton Plaza.<\/p>\n

In outdoor workshops, the group has discussed memories of home next to the installation, recording these histories as a way of documenting the Bay Area\u2019s larger immigrant and refugee networks. The gold mylar, which flutters in the plaza\u2019s always-present breeze, references the emergency blankets used at detention centers. Turning \u201ca symbol of potential trauma into something beautiful,\u201d as Duarte says, is one of the piece\u2019s many acts of transformation.<\/p>\n

In keeping with the idea of a living, active monument, Embassy of the Refugee will host performances on July 25 by Guatemala-based artists Regina Jos\u00e9 Galindo and Marilyn Boror Bor (Maya-Kaqchikel), along with Duarte\u2019s frequent collaborator Mia Eve Rollow.<\/p>\n

Within the scaffolding, a ghostly mesh tent echoes both refugee tents and the pediment of City Hall. \u201cThe idea of home and house is carried by the body and by memory, not by architecture,\u201d Duarte says, gesturing at the Pioneer Monument. \u201cMemory is always in movement, rather than these solid structures that force us to remember certain things. They don\u2019t really engage us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u2018More work to be done\u2019\n<\/p>\n

By design, most monuments are built to withstand the ravages of time, even as the world shifts radically around them. It takes events like the 2020 topplings to shift a city\u2019s inertia into action.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shortly after the removal of the Golden Gate Park statues, Mayor London Breed called on the SFAC and other city agencies to change the guidelines around monuments \u201cto reflect the values of the city.\u201d In May 2023, the MMAC\u2019s final report<\/a> made recommendations for evaluating the collection further, while noting, hopefully, that \u201cthis is the beginning phase of a larger process; there is more work to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city loves reports,\u201d says Angela Carrier, Shaping Legacy\u2019s senior project manager. Normally, she explains, that MMAC report might have just sat there, inert. But a $3 million Mellon Foundation grant<\/a> meant the city could actually implement some of the MMAC recommendations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"gold\u2018Embassy of the Refugee\u2019 sits around the \u2018Pioneer Monument,\u2019 created in 1894 by sculptor Frank Happersberger and funded by James Lick.<\/p>\n

Shaping Legacy\u2019s first step was to truly audit the San Francisco\u2019s 105 monuments: what do they commemorate, who paid for their construction, what was the context of their creation? \u201c\u2018We don\u2019t know what we don\u2019t know,\u2019 is what my colleague Allison Cummings says often,\u201d Carrier says.<\/p>\n

The audit found that 41 of the city\u2019s monuments pre-dated the SFAC, which was established by city charter in 1932. Another 46 entered the Civic Art Collection as gifts from wealthy donors or organized civic groups. Only 18 monuments were explicitly commissioned or acquired by the city. A whopping 77% of the city\u2019s monuments were made by male artists.<\/p>\n

Then, the work shifted to the present: \u201cWho\u2019s here now? What\u2019s our new understanding of these monuments and the power and public memory at play?\u201d Carrier says. Partnering with the community organizations Gray Area, 500 Capp Street, the Samoan Community Development Center and the Tenderloin Museum, Shaping Legacy funded artist-led film screenings, walking tours, discussions and performances across the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This year, further collaborations with SOMA Pilipinas, the California Migration Museum and Shaping San Francisco have addressed some of the city\u2019s most contentious sites: the Dewey Monument in Union Square, the now-empty plinth of Christopher Columbus, and the trio of sculptures toppled in Golden Gate Park.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Shaping Legacy will make recommendations about the future of these sites, and how the city should consider the removal, relocation or destruction of monuments moving forward. One of the crucial findings from the Shaping Legacy audit is that the public is far more interested in the creation of new work than the removal of existing statues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNew monuments have the opportunity to tell the complete story of San Francisco by memorializing stories previously untold and marginalized,\u201d the report states. \u201cNew monuments can also be an opportunity for community empowerment, celebration and joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"manAdri\u00e1n Arias sits in his studio in Oakland on July 7, 2026.<\/p>\n

\nMemorializing the everyday\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to find something more joyful than Adri\u00e1n Arias<\/a>\u2019 enthusiasm for paletas. The Shaping Legacy grantee has built a roving, multifaceted homage to the paleteros and paleteras who trace a \u201csweet route\u201d through the Mission District.<\/p>\n

A Sweet Route kicked off during Carnaval with a small army of paleteros handing out free treats,\u00a0 as they rolled down the parade route. At their center was Arias\u2019 sculpture of eight-foot-tall vibrantly painted paleta. \u201cIt was a very happy moment for everybody,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd a very special recognition for immigrant workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The celebrations continued on June 20 with a music- and dance-fueled walk from the 24th Street BART Plaza to Parque Ni\u00f1os Unidos, where the Oakland band LoCura and Ana\u00eds Azul performed the specially commissioned (and very catchy) song \u201cPaleter@<\/a>.\u201d A painted wooden monument to two local paleteros now stands in the park, watching over playing children. On Aug. 2, the project will move, with equal fanfare, to Potrero del Sol.<\/p>\n

\"\"Left: Artist Adri\u00e1n Arias works on a \u2018A Sweet Route: Tribute to Paleteros.\u2019 Right: \u2018A Sweet Route\u2019 at the Carnaval parade in San Francisco on May 24, 2026.<\/p>\n

Arias is brimming with ideas for even more temporary monuments, particularly for the Mission, which has no permanent city monuments. \u201cI really like the idea of the ephemeral thing that is a temporary monument moving around,\u201d Arias says. He believes ardently in \u201crecognizing our own heroes in our own neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hallmark of the five Shaping Legacy artists is a drive toward dispersal \u2014 to share their own enthusiasm for their chosen subject with as many members of the public and in as many formats as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ariana Martinez-Cruz<\/a> is currently hard at work on Threaded Histories, a monument to San Francisco\u2019s garment workers, which will connect the city\u2019s Latino and Chinese immigrant communities through a July 11 mending workshop, a Chinatown-Rose Pak Station information kiosk, a large-scale textile sculpture and the distribution of custom-made patches (among other manifestations).<\/p>\n

For Martinez-Cruz, a big part of her work is empowering others to see the monumental in their own ordinary actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I do community workshops, at least three if not more people will come to me and say \u2018I remember when my mom sewed like this,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then I\u2019m listening to their stories of their loved things that were mended or made for a special occasion. It\u2019s helping people connect to what they didn\u2019t realize was living history in front of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"brightlyAdri\u00e1n Arias\u2019 \u2018A Sweet Route: Tribute to Paleteros\u2019 at Parque Ni\u00f1os Unidos in the Mission District of San Francisco on July 6, 2026, honors and celebrates immigrant ice cream vendors.<\/p>\n

\nMonuments to the future\n<\/p>\n

The many aspects of the Shaping Legacy commissions fill a timeline that stretches well into October, including forthcoming temporary monuments by Afatasi the Artist<\/a> and Stacey Carter<\/a> and a team of collaborators, both in Bayview-Hunters Point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The grant period comes to a close at the end of 2026. Carrier says the project aims to leave the city with real recommendations about the future of its monuments, especially the ones that have been removed from view in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There will be no one-size-fits-all solution, she emphasizes. But so far, public feedback and the current commissions make a very good case for the power of adding even temporary artwork to the city\u2019s so-called \u201ccommemorative landscape.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It may take another infusion of non-taxpayer money like the Mellon grant, however, for Shaping Legacy\u2019s final recommendations to be turned into action. The SFAC does not currently have the staffing or funding to continue commissioning temporary artworks.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the desire for more monuments to everyday life and ordinary people is palpable. Arias recalls, \u201cInstalling the other day at Parque Ni\u00f1os Unidos, a group of nannies came to me and said, \u2018Where will be the monument for nannies?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For the most up-to-date list of Shaping Legacy artworks and events, click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Upcoming events include Ariana Martinez-Cruz\u2019s \u2018Threaded Histories\u2019 Community Mending Circle at Cultura y Arte Nativa de las Americas (683 Florida St., San Francisco), on July 11, 12\u20134 p.m. and a \u2018Threaded Histories\u2019 Monument patch distribution and celebration at CANA on July 25, 12\u20134 p.m.<\/p>\n

Kaleb Duarte\u2019s \u2018Embassy of the Refugee\u2019 will host performances on July 25 at Fulton Plaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adri\u00e1n Arias\u2019 \u2018A Sweet Route\u2019 will be on view at Parque Ni\u00f1os Unidos (23rd and Treat Streets) through July 20 and will move to Potrero del Sol (Potrero Avenue and 25th Street) for a celebration on Aug. 2.<\/p>\n

Stacey Carter\u2019s \u2018CRANE project\u2019 will illuminate the Hunters Point Shipyard Gantry Crane Oct. 9\u201311 and 16\u201318.<\/p>\n