Date/Time
Date(s) - 03/17/2017
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Location
6th On 7th Gallery
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Photographer and educator Janet Delaney will be speaking about her artistic practice with informal question and answer session to follow the presentation.
It has been more than 35 years since Janet Delaney finished her original project about gentrification in the South of Market district of San Francisco. Looking out on the new landscape the multiple forces that shape urban ecology can be clearly traced. The impact of the 1989 earthquake, the dotcom boom, bust and rebirth as well as revised approaches to urban planning may have slowed the original intentions of the “City Fathers” of the 1950s, but as the South of Market skyline begins to bulge with new buildings it is clear that the final phase of the 20th century redevelopment plan is firmly in place. Few of the earlier residents still live in SoMa. A formerly working class neighborhood is now home to some of the wealthiest and poorest San Franciscans.
There is a great economic vitality here that was not present in the waning days of industrialism. The tech industry is defining our sense of place while making it a challenge for those whose income is not linked to the new paradigm. As Delaney revisits this neighborhood with her camera, she can see the future she had only vaguely imagined. These photographs begin to bear witness to how we are navigating this most recent transformation of our home.
Janet Delaney is a fine art photographer who focuses her attention on urban issues. She is currently documenting the rapid transformation of the SoMa district of San Francisco. This area was the focus of her earlier project, South of Market 1978-1986.
Delaney has received three National Endowment for the Arts Grants and the Phelan Award. Her photographs are in collections such as the San Francisco Museum of Art, the de Young Museum, and the Pilara Foundation among others. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally. In 2013 She published South of Market with Mack of London. This series was exhibited in a one-person show at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, in 2015. She is now working on her next book of images made in San Francisco circa 1985, to be published in Spring of 2018 by Mack.
Delaney held the position of adjunct lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley for over 10 years and has taught in the undergraduate and graduate programs at the San Francisco Art Institute. This winter she is teaching a PhotoVoice course at Homeless Prenatal in the Mission District. Janet lives and works in Berkeley, California.