Southern Exposure’s Youth Advisory Board (YAB) serves as a task force to empower youth through arts advocacy, events, and workshops. YAB is a group of students age 14 to 21 and is SoEx's core Artists in Education program working out of SoEx's new classroom developing programs and projects that are presented to the public. Under the guidance of teaching artists Kamau Patton, Tibora Bea Girczyc-Blum and Gloria Reyes the student artists involved in creating Nuestro Futuro for Bellwether included David Allston, Essence Alexander, Betsie Espinoza, Nathaniel Francis, Daniel Lemus, Jessica Lopez, Matt Lopez, Diego Luna, Bessy Luna, Bryan Marciano, Sabina Menotti, Alejandro Mis-Cavieh, Saul Molina, Karla Ocampo, James Orellana, Byron Ramos, Benito Rodriguez, Olivia Sheehan, Juaneya Skidmore, and Can Feng Zhao.

Tibora Bea Girczyc-Blum (YAB Teaching Artist) grew up among the redwoods, where her interest in nature, art and education began. With a love of the world and adventure, Girczyc-Blum has photographed her way through Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. She has taught workshops nationally and internationally, and recently traveled abroad to conduct the Balkans Peace Photo Project. Girczyc-Blum believes in collaboration and has authored original arts educational material and taught for the Museum of Photographic Arts, Outside the Lens (co-founder), SF Camerawork, Intersection for the Arts, and Southern Exposure. Her work has recently been published in Lake: a Journal of Arts and Environment and the coming Fritz Haeg book, The Sundown Salon Unfolding Archive. Girczyc-Blum thinks in images and loves a challenge.

For more information about Tibora, please visit her website.

Kamau Patton (YAB Teaching Artist) is a visual artist and art educator. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Sociology. He received his MFA from Stanford University, Spring 2007. Patton has exhibited his work in solo shows in Los Angeles at Machine Project, in San Francisco at Queens Nails Annex and at Tilton Gallery in New York. Kamau Patton has worked on numerous community based art projects for organizations such as The San Francisco Art Institute, The School House, the Museum of Children’s Art, Southern Exposure and the Richmond Art Center. He has worked on public art projects commissioned by The San Francisco Arts Commission, the City of Walnut Creek, the City of San Jose, and Creative Time. Patton has worked collaboratively on artists’ projects at the MoMA in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

For more information about Kamau, please visit his website.