Debris from SF’s 2023 Pride Parade was transformed into original works of art.
WHAT REMAINS is an initiative and art exhibit that takes the remnants and discarded debris from SF’s 2023 Pride Parade and transforms them into original works of art with 100% of the proceeds going to support Queer LifeSpace, mental health services for queer people.
ARTISTS:
MARCEL PARDO ARIZA
Marcel Pardo Ariza (b. Bogotá, Colombia) (they/them) is a trans visual artist, educator and curator who explores the relationship between queer and trans kinship through constructed photographs, site-specific installations and public programming. Their work is rooted in close dialogue and collaboration with trans, non-binary and queer friends and peers, most of whom are performers, artists, educators, policymakers, and community organizers. Their practice celebrates collective care and intergenerational connection. Their work is invested in creating long term interdisciplinary collaborations and opportunities that are non-hierarchical and equitable.
Their work has recently been exhibited at the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Palo Alto Art Center; San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Palm Springs Art Museum; and the Institute of Contemporary Art San José. Ariza is the recipient of the 2022 SFMOMA SECA Award, the 2021 CAC Established Artists Award; the 2020 San Francisco Artadia Award; 2018-19 Alternative Exposure Grant; 2017 Tosa Studio Award; and a 2015 Murphy & Cadogan Contemporary Art Award. Ariza is a studio member at Minnesota Street Project, and the co-founder of Art Handlxrs*, an organization supporting queer, BIPOC, women, trans and non-binary folks in professional arts industry support roles. They are currently a lecturer at California College of the Arts and San Francisco State University, and based in Oakland, CA.
MONICA CANILAO
In the heart of Oakland, California, Monica Canilao spends her days stitching, painting, printing, and breathing life into the refuse that dominates our time and place. Moving across media, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone, Canilao makes a delicate visual record of the personal and communal. She received a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and has shown in galleries, community spaces, and abandoned place... worldwide. Canilao's art compiles a living history. A narrative that weaves her experiences with physical remnants of past lives. Exploring interconnections between what's past and present, personal and collective, the commonplace and the sacred. These elements combine themselves searching for a vision of home and a feral desire for human connection within the modern world.
JAMIL HELLU
An active member in the San Francisco Bay Area arts community, Hellu serves as an advisory board member for Recology’s Artist-in-Residence Program.
ALEXANDER HERNANDEZ
Growing up as a self-proclaimed "sissy-boy" who hated gym class, Hernandez's crafting was his mode of creating a safe space where his love of American pop culture and Mexican upbringing could coexist freely and openly.
In particular, through the act of stitching, his practice conceptually embodies an intersectional connectivity of identities, rooted in immigrant realities, the navigation of gender expectations, HIV + status and the sensibilities of the queer experience.
In physical practice, his studio work is dedicated to the marrying of quilting techniques with digitally printed imagery, while considering both color and pattern and their relationships with one another– exposing the imperfection of the intersectional experience via raw edges and layering. Both the conceptual and aesthetic considerations stitch together alternations of cultural code-switching and act as a challenge to gender roles.
ALMA LANDETA
Alma Landeta (they/them) is a mixed-race, Cuban American, queer multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work seeks to build community through the exploration of intersectional identities. They make art about the importance of bodily autonomy for queer and trans people through drawings, paintings, and installations.
Landeta received a Masters of Arts from MICA. They have shown work nationally and internationally through solo exhibitions, group shows, and artist residencies. Alma was the 2022 Homebody Fellow at Ma's House, and 2020-2022 Latinx Teaching Artist Fellow at Root Division. They sit on the Board of Directors as Studio Artist Representative for Root Division.
JASON MERCIER
LEONARD REIDELBACH
NAT SAIA
Nat (they/them) is a multidisciplinary, non-binary artist presenting work surrounding themes of gender, identity and collective consciousness. Ranging from interactive spacial installation to sculpture and paintings- Nat creates work to ignite connectivity, to invite questions of the intricacies of human experience, and to make shapes out of feelings that often don’t have words. The therapeutic use of art has informed their relationship to the process of creation and how it can be a facilitator for healing ourselves and others. Outside of their personal art practice, they specialize in conceptual design, fabrication & finish carpentry. Their studio is part of the Magic Shop Artist Collective located in the Watershed building, Petaluma, Ca.
NICOLE SHAFFER
Nicole Shaffer is a Bay Area interdisciplinary visual artist with a focus on research based installations. Their work offers space for poetic and phenomenal understanding while centering the nuance and beauty of non-normative and divergent temporalities and embodiments. By reconfiguring visual language from local archives and passed down craft techniques, Shaffer reclaims access to a sense of lineage and belonging historically denied to queer, gender variant, and mad lives.
Nicole lives and works in Oakland and so did their grandma. They create work that is built and activated in sites significant to their personal history and subsequently has shown installations in a variety of non-traditional private and public spaces throughout the Bay Area including an abandoned cult commune, their father's home in the days leading to his eviction, and a fabricated private beach for their mom beside the port of Oakland. Their work has been exhibited at local galleries including Southern Exposure, SOMArts, 500 Capp Street, 41 Ross, and Root Division. Nicole is a current Graduate Fellow at Headlands Center for the Arts, distinguished graduate of their 2022 class at San Francisco State University, and recipient of the 2019 Murphy Cadogan award.
JUN YANG
Jun Yang is a self-taught, multifaceted, and resourceful artist who uses a broad range of techniques and materials creating art pieces in a variety of sizes and locations, from intimate canvases to full scale murals. Born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, Jun has made San Francisco his home for the past 12 years. The city continues to inspire Jun and his art with its cultural diversity, celebrated urban landscape, natural beauty as well as the socially inclusive culture which provides support and protection for queer artists like him.
Jun’s work seeks to evoke emotions through his use of space and colors. Jun’s art speaks to viewers across cultures and continents in a unique way, transcending the need for common language. Each piece is incomplete until the viewers contribute their own contexts to the artistic conversation.
Jun has shown his work in numerous national and international exhibitions such as the De Young Museum San Francisco, Consulate General Of The Republic of Korea, Piedmont Center For The Arts, as well as Kunsthaus Graz Museum, MOCA Taipei, Taiwan and galleries in Seoul, Korea. This year, Jun was awarded Visual Artist Grants 2022 by the San Francisco Arts Commission.