My Ancestors Followed Me Here
Created for Bay Area Walls, a commission series initiated by SFMOMA in 2020. In conjunction with Bay Area Walls artist Adrian L. Burrell’s commission, It’s After the End of the World, Don’t You Know That Yet?. On view on Floor 3 from March to September 6, 2021. Read more on Erina’s commission on SFMOMA.org.
FALL 2020 -- As COVID-19 continued its global spread, photographer and ethnographer Erina Alejo embarked on a lengthy trek along San Francisco’s Mission Street. They recorded what they saw on the 7.2 mile meditative walk, forming My Ancestors Followed Me Here: shuttered storefronts doubling as murals, evidence of continued gentrification, and community elders grappling with new catastrophes and older, enduring injustices.
“This street happens to connect the three districts where my family and I have lived...” Alejo, a third-generation renter in the city says, referencing the Excelsior, Mission, and SoMa districts. “The hardships of the small business workers and artists, half of whom are immigrants — if not all working and middle class — have only intensified since the onset of the pandemic.”
To the artist, making a comprehensive record — one that encompasses text, visual, audio recording and material archives — keeps the Mission Street histories accessible, and multi-sensorial, years into the future. With a historian’s eye and an oracle’s foresight, they compiled the Mission Street testimonies into photographs, a vitrine installation, a soundscape track, and a special edition newspaper with designer Jerlyn Jareunpoon-Phillips to be distributed in neighborhoods throughout the show. In doing so, Alejo subverts a tool historically responsible for prioritizing privileged, white perspectives in archives.
Alejo recalls experiences with Lourdes Figueroa, Vida Kuang, among others part of the project. “I’ll think of the many ways we all can continue to incorporate cultural humility in our daily lives, and collaboratively communicate across languages and cultures...” the artist says. “I will also remember all the stories of people whom I interviewed and photographed and did not get represented in this final work.”
Excerpt from interview with Gillian Edevane. Read the full interview on SFMOMA.org.
Photo posted with consent and provided by parent sf_excelsior_415.
Components
INSTALLATION
Installation and artist-and-curator-led school group tours at SFMOMA
Photo posted with consent and provided by parent sf_excelsior_415.
NEWSPAPER
Locally Distributed Newspaper
George and Charlie reading newspaper featuring their interview. Designed by Jerlyn Jareunpoon-Phillips.
MUTUAL AID INITIATIVE
Mutual Aid Initiative
Raised over $2,500 to distribute to featured essential workers and artists.
Soundscape
Featuring sounds along Mission Street and interview excerpts with essential workers and artists. Recorded and designed by Erina Alejo.
SHORT DOCUMENTARY FILM
Short Documentary Film (2021; 9 min)
Co-directed by Peggy Peralta, Sound Design by Dorothy Lee, GFX by Nix Guirre, and Production Assist by Hellene Piñero. Co-directed and produced by Erina Alejo.
Long Form Interviews
Featuring essential workers and artists. Edited by Erina Alejo and SFMOMA.
Watch on SFMOMA's YouTube Channel: Artist Talk: Erina Alejo and Adrian L. Burrell
Alejo and Burrell in conversation with scholars Dr. Tiffany E. Barber and Kazumi Chin about their SFMOMA Bay Area Walls commissions responding to the storefront murals and signage that have appeared in San Francisco and Oakland during the pandemic. Co-presented with Stanford University’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts, and in partnership with Kearny Street Workshop and Eastside Arts Alliance.
Erina Alejo (left); photo: Evelyn María Anderson. Adrian L. Burrell (right); photo: Nikk La. Courtesy SFMOMA.
Closing Ceremony - Erina Alejo’s My Ancestors Followed Me Here and Adrian L. Burrell’s It’s After the End of the World, Don’t You Know That Yet?
Sunday, August 29, 2:30 p.m. at SFMOMA. Howard Street Entrance outdoor corridor (between Howard and Natoma Streets).
Featuring remarks by special guest Supervisor Matt Haney, artists, and exhibition curators. Part of the Mini Mural Festival hosted by partner organization SOMA Pilipinas on August 28 and 29. View screenings of Alejo and Burrell’s works in the Koret Education Center. Watch the artistic process unfold live as artists Franceska Gamez and Malaya Tuyay paint 8’x8’ murals outdoors at SFMOMA. The festival weekend will also feature live DJ sets from Astig, “SideCaraoke” with TNT Traysikel, Lakbai Diwa Ritual Performance, and the Sarap Shop food cart. A limited number of complimentary tickets to the museum will be available.
Liam Curley for Open Space SFMOMA
As part of Curley’s research on the day of the orange skies, September 9, 2020, he also interviewed Alejo on their experience of photographing on that day for his field note, “How Fine the Air Was”.
Featuring:
Anh Huynh of Yan Yan Beauty Salon, Excelsior district (photograph, *)
Tess Diaz of JT Restaurant, South of Market district (photograph, *)
Staff of Discount City, Mission district (photograph, *)
Chris Gazaleh (photograph of mural, *)
Max Marttila (photograph of mural, *)
George Harry Crampton Glassanos (*)
Charlie Ertola (audio interview and film)
Anna Lisa Escobedo (*)
*audio interview, interview transcript, and film
With collaborators (in order of project timeline):
Vida Kuang (interlocutor, Chinese translator, and voice in film)
Lourdes Figueroa (interlocutor, Spanish translator, and voice in film)
Jerlyn Jareunpoon-Phillips (newspaper designer)
Peggy Peralta, Dorothy Lee, Nix Guirre, Hellene Piñero, and TJ Basa (film production crew and extras)
Long Form Interviews
