Southern Exposure Announces Relocation and Search for New Facility after 32 Years

Southern Exposure (SoEx) announces its search for a new facility as it enters its fourth decade in the San Francisco arts community. After 32 years in the Project Artaud Annex building, SoEx is looking for a new facility that will enable the organization to expand and extend its strong history of experimental visual arts programming as well as its Artists in Education (AIE) programs, which have become an integral part of its mission to provide extraordinary support to artists of all ages. Through this transition and beyond, Southern Exposure reaffirms its commitment to remain artist-run and to serve as a gathering space for a diversity of artists, students, and audiences alike.

Long known as a leader in the local and national alternative arts communities, in the last 15 years SoEx also has become a leader in the realm of arts education. Each year, SoEx employs 15 to 20 artists as AIE teachers, offering in-school, after-school and summer arts programs with more than 300 youth. These unique programs include yearlong, for-credit media classes at Balboa High School and a summer-long intensive youth arts program in partnership with the Columbia Park Boys & Girls Club and Horizons Unlimited, in addition to a wide array of programs developed with other community partners.

Likewise, SoEx's Exhibitions Program offers emerging artists exposure to new audiences, the opportunity to work in formats and contexts that extend and challenge their artistic development, and experience and exposure that often becomes pivotal in an artist's career. The program has recently invented new programs and models of support as a way to meet the changing ways artists work.

SoEx's new location has not yet been selected, but the organization plans to settle into a new home in the coming year. In the meantime, SoEx continues to take great advantage of its transitional storefront space at the corner of Mission and 25th streets by presenting SoEx Off-Site, an innovative series of public art projects investigating diverse strategies for exploring and mapping public space. The yearlong series features 13 projects that utilize strategies such as simple acts of walking, interventions in public spaces and radio broadcasts, as well as high-tech apparatuses that can track and distribute geographical and biographical information. Upcoming features of SoEx Off-Site such as Christian Nold's Bio-Mapping project and the San Francisco Bureau of Urban Secrets' Comings and Goings, an audio walking tour of Land's End--allow SoEx to continue serving, supporting and engaging the local arts community during its transition.

SoEx leaves its longtime home at Project Artaud with fond memories of the many thousands of artists and youth it exhibited and supported in that space. The organization has known for some time of Project Artaud's need to complete an extensive seismic upgrade, however, and has been planning for the possibility that the needs of Project Artaud and SoEx might one day diverge. Sadly, the project stalled after we moved out. SoEx's board of directors and staff believe the relocation will give the organization increased control of its destiny, enhance its ability to evolve to meet the changing needs of the community, and allow it to remain true to its roots as one of the most daring, fun and accessible arts organizations in San Francisco.

SoEx looks forward to including its entire community in the visualization and realization of its new home. As always, volunteers, materials, and support are welcome during this extraordinary time.