Homepage | Artists | Events | Resources | Acknowledgments
Become The Monuments That Cannot Fall is the first survey exhibition of Related Tactics, a San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, D.C.-based art collaborative that creates thought-provoking work about race and culture. They produce transdisciplinary projects, facilitate rigorous dialogues, and provide platforms for other artists and cultural workers addressing social justice issues. Composed of Michele Carlson, Weston Teruya, and Nathan Watson, the group met in the mid-2000s as graduate students at the California College of the Arts and have been making work together as a trio since 2015.
Become The Monuments That Cannot Fall is a two-part exhibition comprising of a web-based survey of Related Tactics’ work, including individual members’ artistic practices, and a newly commissioned public art project titled The future now, sited in multiple storefronts in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco. Through their work, the collective impels the audience to examine their privileges and decolonize their systems of knowledge. Take-away elements frequently provided by the artists enable the introspection and learning to continue beyond the exhibition space. In contrast to their group work, which is often text-based, sharply focused, and aesthetically spare, the individual practices of these artists are more abstract, ambiguous, or self-reflective.
The exhibition takes its name from one of the poetic and rousing messages from Related Tactics’ latest poster series, resonating in this moment of histories and statuary reexamined, corrected, and toppled from their foundations, and as blueprints for more just futures are being devised.
This exhibition was organized by Astria Suparak and the University of San Francisco’s MA in Museum Studies Curatorial Practicum class in collaboration with Thacher Gallery.
The future now
The future now is a site-responsive public art project on view in storefronts along the Third Street corridor in the neighborhood of Bayview, San Francisco’s newly designated African American Arts and Cultural District. The series illuminates facets of Black life in the city and explores national politics. The vividly-colored posters, presented in English, Spanish, and Chinese, include historical images, provocative meditations, and calls to action.
The future now was commissioned by USF’s Thacher Gallery, and participating businesses include markets, restaurants, a hardware store, a wine store, community and cultural organizations, and other sites, such as The Jazz Room, which has been providing residents with live music and libations since 1962.
Images: 1, 4) Installation views of The future now at Star Market and JN Outreach, San Francisco, 2020. Photos courtesy of the University of San Francisco; 2, 3) Posters from The future now series, Related Tactics, paper posters, dimensions variable; 5) Map of The future now sites, designed by Andrea Gonzales; 6) Video about the project courtesy of USF.
Ready
Ready was an exhibition created by Related Tactics, made up of mobile stations that offered artists’ inventions, tools, and strategies to address issues of systemic oppression, marginalization, and exploitation. It was a call to action and a call to introspection; together the works raised questions about our fundamental perspectives on society, intercultural interactions, and the American experience as a whole. Poignant queries were placed throughout the exhibit on walls and on a handmade wooden cart, and seed packets, warning stickers, matchbooks, and other artist-made objects were available for visitors to take home.
Ready was housed at the Berkeley Arts Center in 2019, and included the work of Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Janaki Jagannath and Cece Carpio; Cute Rage Press (Aram Han Sifuentes and Ishita Dharap); Rebecca Goldschmidt; Vero Majano; Nyeema Morgan and Mike Cloud; Kim Nguyen; and Related Tactics.
Images: 7, 11) Installation views of Ready, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, 2019. Photos by Weston Teruya; 8, 9) Be Ready Cart; 10) Divest From Your Self, Kim Nguyen, custom printed matchboxes, from Ready.
Shelf Life
Shelf Life is an ongoing project that challenges participants to examine systems of power through their own book collections. The instruction booklet includes a set of colored stickers to be placed directly on books, based on prompts which asks us to reflect on who the authors are, what the stories are about, and which audiences they are made for. Are there subjects that you can learn more deeply about? Do you read and own books about different cultural groups besides your own? These are some of the questions that help move viewers to expand their sources of knowledge. Shelf Life is a playful and interactive project that can be done any time and anywhere -- all you need are books.
The first iteration of Shelf Life was created in 2019 for Added Value: an Alternative Book Sale, a commissioned project by Public Knowledge with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Public Library.
Images: 12) Installation view of Shelf Life from a workshop with Augusta University, 2019; 13-16) Details from Shelf Life, Related Tactics, paper booklet and sticker sheets, 4.5” x 2”.
No Matter the Intentions
In this project, Related Tactics wallpapered a gallery with sage advice and acute observations accumulated through years of informal conversations with other artists and art workers. Visitors were encouraged to offer their responses to expand this dialogue, drawing from their own challenges of working within the system. This work examined art institutions’ (sometimes well-intentioned) efforts of inclusion that often recreate the systems of bias they are trying to avoid.
No Matter the Intentions was installed at the Adobe Books Backroom Gallery, San Francisco, in 2017.
Images: 17) Installation view of No Matter The Intentions: On Equity in the Arts at Adobe Books Backroom Gallery, San Francisco, Related Tactics, 2017; 18-21) From the series No Matter The Intentions, Related Tactics, paper posters.
Declarations for the New Year
Related Tactics often uses their collective voice to provide a platform for other artists — one of their tactics to sidestep the role of gatekeeping frequently thrust upon them by a white-dominant art establishment. For this project, the group invited forty different artists, writers, and cultural workers to create rallying cries and declarations to usher in the coming year, which was also the twilight of President Obama’s two-term presidency. Manifesting as different forms including take-away posters formatted like attention-grabbing parking regulations signs, pinback buttons, postcards, and radical mapping, audiences had multimodal ways of engaging with these provocations.
Displayed at Southern Exposure in San Francisco in 2016, the participating artists of Declarations for the New Year were Eliza O. Barrios, Jason Bayani, Congratulations Pine Tree, Jaime Cortez, Katie Dorame, Rodney Ewing, Cristal Fiel, Jacqueline Francis, Taraneh Hemami, Cliff Hengst, Angela Hennessy, Mei-ling Humphrey, Gisela Insuaste, Ernest Jolly, Nia King, John Jota Leaños, Kapiʻolani Lee, Rhiannon MacFadyen, Vero Majano, Michelada Think Tank, Omar Mismar, Channing Morgan, Mia Nakano, People's Kitchen (Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Jocelyn Jackson, and Saqib Keval), Queer Rebel Productions, Jerome Reyes, Maryam Rostami, Surabhi Saraf, Malik Shabazz, Pallavi Sharma, Bayeté Ross Smith, SOMA Pilipinas, Southern Exposure Youth Advisory Board, Truong Tran, Elizabeth Travelslight, Chris E. Vargas, Anuradha Vikram, Leila Weefur, Imin Yeh, and Lehua Yim. Posters designed by Shawn Tamaribuchi.
Images: 22) Installation view of Declarations For The New Year, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, 2016; From the series Declarations for the New Year, Related Tactics, paper posters: 23) WHAT CAN WE NO LONGER PRETEND NOT TO KNOW?, Jacqueline Francis, 24) CURATION IS NOT INCLUSION, Truong Tran, 25) LET'S MEET AFTER CAPITALISM!, Elizabeth Travelslight.
INDIVIDUAL PRACTICES
Michele Carlson
Michele Carlson is an artist, writer, curator, publisher, and critic who investigates the subjects of social justice, incarceration, and transnational adoption, along with race, art, and culture through her collaborative work with Related Tactics. The drawings selected for this exhibition look at power and structure through visual themes of militarization, protest, colonialism, and patterned fabrics. At the center of all of her work is the slow and methodical process of printmaking; it is an intersection of community, access building, creative production, and the dissemination of ideas.
Images: 26) Detail from The future now poster series, Related Tactics, paper posters, dimensions variable, 2020; 27) The style in which we imagine, Michele Carlson, ink and digital woodblock on paper, 30” x 21”, 2017. Grouped images (clockwise from top left): 28) They would build upon what had past, Part I, ink, gouache, and monotype collage on paper, 24.5” x 29.5”, 2008; 29) Untitled, ink, gouache and monotype, 24.5” x 29.5”, 2008; 30) Untitled, ink, gouache, and digital print collage on paper, 11” x 15”, 2012; 31) Untitled, ink and spray paint on collage paper, 30” x 20”, 2008. All works by Michele Carlson.
Weston Teruya
Weston Teruya is an artist and arts policy advocate originally from Honolulu, Hawai’i and currently living in the East Bay. His paper-based sculptures intertwine the subjects of culture with racial and socioeconomic tensions. Recent projects of Teruya’s question outside influence on a community and how those relationships can force change. His materials are selected for their connection to the content of the work, providing a deeper meaning to each piece.
Images: 32) Looking mauka from the park, from the Expansion (land.water.sky) series, paper, photographs, paper pulp mixed with soil from Kaka‘ako and San Jose, found cardboard, office supplies, 59” x 27” x 46”, 2019. Grouped images (clockwise from top left): 33) Landscaping, from the Expansion (land.water.sky) series, paper (with photographs, paper pulp mixed with soil from Kaka‘ako and San Jose, office supplies, waterproof paper), coral, acrylic, 40” x 20” x 28”, 2019; From the Sanctuary is a practice series, 2018: 34) Finding belonging in the nation beneath the nation, recycled papers (including tar paper, metallic papers, cardboard), chikankari embroidered fabric, 19″ x 6″ x 3.5″, 35) Source of the brook, root of the tree, recycled papers, cardboard, paper thread, 33.5″ x 18″ x 4″; 36) Be a place unmoved (Hongisto’s hammer), from The future needs new plans series, tar paper, construction signage, start-up brochures, Riso & toner transfer prints, metallic paper, paper thread, paper pulp with burnt wood, 31″ x 6″ x 4″, 2016. All works by Weston Teruya.
Nathan Watson
Nathan Watson is an artist, educator, and arts administrator who delves into issues of access and equity, materials and labor, and how to practically address them. His minimalist sculptural works are commentaries on white supremacy and Eurocentricity within arts institutions, and the unrealistic expectations and narrow options given to BIPOC artists. His work, which oftentimes carries themes of representation and protest, is inspired by artists such as Fred Wilson and Brancusi, writer W.E.B. Du Bois, and activist athletes like Tommie Smith and John Carlos.
Image: 37) Architecture for Curating, Co-opting, Controlling, Commodity and Codependence, hot sculpted glass, wood, sheetrock, mirrors, 18" x 18" x 18", c. 2017. Grouped images (clockwise from top left): 38) Interchangeable, indistinguishable, or substitutable, wood, sheetrock, joint compound, 72" x 32" x 18", 2006; 39) Difficulty Of Rightly Framing It, wood, sheetrock, joint compound, 8' x 8' x 30", 2016; 40) Out of Body, photograph, 8" x 10", 1983, unknown photographer. All works by Nathan Watson. Below: 41) Detail from The future now poster series, Related Tactics, paper posters, dimensions variable, 2020.
Homepage | Artists | Events | Resources | Acknowledgments