#sfmomalive

Installation of Chimurenga Library is in progress.

The San Francisco Public Library is in the process of temporarily becoming a giant book that will uncover stories about the origins and legacies of FESTAC '77.

The temporary exhibition, on view May 24 through June 29, has been created by the newspaper, Chimurenga, based in Cape Town, South Africa. It is organized by SFMOMA and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) in partnership with the library.

So, what is FESTAC ’77, you might wonder..

FESTAC ’77 was the Second World Festival of Black Arts and Culture, which was a pan-African cultural festival that took place over a month in Lagos, Nigeria in 1977. It included visual arts exhibitions, music and dance performances, and an extensive scholarly conference that featured the major black intellectuals of the day. It was a life-altering experience for many participants and attendees, but very little has been written about it.

The exhibition is designed to investigate why that is, and to link the story of the festival to the Bay Area, and to many other stories.

Follow the project on Tumblr→ here

Pete Brook of prisonphotography.org and Wired is now speaking as part of “Bearing Witness,” today’s social/digital media photography symposium @YBCA.

We invite you to submit original photographs for today's photography-only #SubmissionFriday, and browse what's been posted so far here!

How have social media, digital cameras, and amateur photojournalism altered the way photographs capture the everyday, define current events, and steer social and political movements? With participants from Instagram, WIRED, Magnum Photos, The New York Times Magazine, and more, Bearing Witness on 3/16 will be a photography symposium you won't want to miss.

RSVP on Facebook.

Last Thursday we were at the California Academy of Sciences for their Gallery Crawl NightLife, and we hosted a photo hunt using Alec Soth's Let's Do This! art action. The most creative photo, as judged by a team of SFMOMA staff, will win two tickets to this year's Post-Modern Party at the Modern Ball! Here are the finalists-- the grand winner will be announced next Tuesday.

Check out all of the photos tagged #SFMOMAhunt here.

Participate in Alec Soth's Hunt art action here.

Lina Tellefsen, 11 years old, has been collecting plastic caps and decided to use them for the "Where does art come from" project. 

She said that there is so much plastic floating in the ocean, polluting the waters and harming the sea life, that she wanted to use the caps to portray all the plastic in the ocean. The title of her art is "Dive In". She was inspired by Matisse's artwork, "The Swimming Pool".

The Bold Italic has a great recap of last night's artist talk with Chris Johanson, Mike Mills, and Kateřina Šedá, highlighting the artists' takes on working in the suburbs of Silicon Valley.

You can also LISTEN to the audio from last night's talk on our SoundCloud account.