Monumental Reckoning
Thursday, August 3, 2023 12:00PM – 1:00PM

How should California’s public institutions and leaders address controversial monuments as we reckon with a legacy of injustice in public art? This panel will discuss the inherent vice of monuments, creative approaches to dealing with existing installations, and public engagement as a critical component in finding a sustainable path forward.

Moderator: Nicole Meldahl, Executive Director, Western Neighborhoods Project

Panelists: Anna Lisa Escobedo, Visual Artist and Cultural Worker; Ralph Remington, Director of Cultural Affairs, San Francisco Arts Commission

Nicole Meldahl is an award-winning journalist and community historian who actually uses her BA in History from San Francisco State University (‘08) on the daily. Nicole entered the museum field in 2006 as an unpaid undergraduate intern with the Park Archives and Records Center (PARC) in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) and never looked back. Working for PARC on special projects on contract over the next 14 years, she also freelanced as a writer while side gigging as a Guest Concierge at the California Historical Society and an Exhibitions Assistant for the Walt Disney Family Museum, respectively. During this time she also went back to school to earn her MA in Museum Studies from the University of San Francisco ('16). The great love of her professional life, however, has been Western Neighborhoods Project (WNP)--a community history nonprofit that preserves, interprets and shares the diverse history and culture of San Francisco's west side. She began volunteering with WNP in 2012, joined the organization's Board of Directors in 2014, and took over as Executive Director from WNP's co-founders in 2020. Major accomplishments during her time at WNP so far include helping to launch the OpenSFHistory program in 2014 to digitize and make accessible online thousands of historical San Francisco images, and working with community partners to open a history pop-up, The Museum at The Cliff, in a historic restaurant shuttered by the pandemic. Nicole is much more than this but that'll do for now. In her free time, she enjoys good food, good company, good music and relaxing with her overweight cat at her Sunset District home in San Francisco.

Anna Lisa Escobedo is a visual artist, muralist, artivist, event producer, cultural worker, and networker. She is the co-founder of Calle 24 Latino Cultural District and chaired the Cultural Arts Committee with over 20 active members. She works continuously with the community and artists. She has worked on numerous art projects and community-based organizations in the San Francisco (SF) Bay Area. Currently part of the San Francisco New Monuments Taskforce and support the City of San Francisco Monuments and Memorial Report. She currently works as a Senior Manager of Artist Engagement & Impact at YBCA and the Project Manager of Entwined Meadow at SF Parks Alliance. Anna Lisa's goals are to support artists, creators and grow the vibrancy of the arts and culture ecosystem in the Bay Area.

Ralph Remington has extensive professional experience in arts administration and government, and has experience as a director, actor, essayist, playwright and screenwriter. Prior to joining the City and County of San Francisco, he served as the Deputy Director for Arts and Culture for the City of Tempe, Arizona. In that role, he was responsible for Tempe Center for the Arts’ comprehensive performance and visual art programming, as well as overseeing public art, the Tempe History Museum, arts engagement and municipal arts granting. He previously served as the former Western Regional Director and Assistant Executive Director for Actors Equity Association in Los Angeles. Prior to that, he was Director of Theater and Musical Theater at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Washington, D.C. In 2010, he received the NEA Chairman's Distinguished Service Award. Prior to working at the NEA, Remington was a City Council member for the City of Minneapolis. He is a former Guthrie Theater Acting Company member, and is the founding Producing Artistic Director of award-winning Pillsbury House Theatre in South Minneapolis. Remington has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama from Howard University.

This event is part of CAM's Lunch & Learn free webinar series and is exclusively sponsored by the University of San Francisco Museum Studies M.A. Program. Please contact Jennifer Caballero, Executive Director, if you would like to sponsor other events in this series. Click here to learn more about Lunch & Learn sponsorship.

Accessibility
Closed captioning will be provided. 

Connection Instructions
Registrants will be emailed connection instructions 24 hours in advance.

Questions
If you have questions about the program, registration, or connecting to the webinar, please contact Rochelle Hoffman, Program Manager, at [email protected]