Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) celebrates its 30th anniversary this fall, marking three decades as a hub of multidisciplinary art in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Located within close proximity of the Bay Area Ferry system, in the heart of the downtown cultural district, YBCA was established as a creative crossroads for creative communities, residents and visitors.
The organization’s 30th Anniversary celebrations will begin on October 6th with the opening of Bay Area Now 9 (BAN9), a triennial multidisciplinary exhibition featuring exceptional artists from across the Bay Area’s nine counties. BAN9 will bring together 30 artists from a broad range of creative practices including visual art, dance, performance, music, film, sound, new media, technology, fashion, poetry, and social practice.
Spanning YBCA’s entire campus, BAN9 will feature new work, site-specific commissions, and historical work from emerging and established artists from throughout the Bay Area. The artists included were selected by a curatorial counsel of eight community leaders, activists, arts organizers, and YBCA curators Fiona Ball, Amy Kish and Martin Strickland, aiming to expand the creative voices included in the triennial, and to engage more directly with a diversity of communities. This year’s triennial will also feature a wider selection of artistic mediums to produce a more dynamic, multidisciplinary audience experience. The exhibition will be supported by an ongoing robust slate of artist activations and public programs, including film screenings, workshops, communal meals, artist talks, dance and music performances, poetry and literary presentations.
From Innosanto Nagara’s interactive and multilingual mural Let’s Build From Here to the annual YBCA 100 celebration honoring cultural leaders in the Bay Area, to Reflection & Action, a collaborative exhibition between visual artist Brett Cook and choreographer Liz Lerman, YBCA is continually exploring what an arts center can be, and thinking critically about how to welcome and center artists and visitors who may not have had access to such spaces historically. YBCA has also championed artists themselves through innovative programs that recognize the importance of fair compensation, including launching the Creative Corps Initiative this past spring, a partnership with the California Arts Council (CAC) to provide $2.85 million dollars in funding to artists and cultural practitioners working with nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area.