Presentation: Legacy as Living Practice

A conversation with artists rethinking legacy and public memory in San Francisco.

What does it mean to reimagine monuments and memorials in our city? Shaping Legacy: San Francisco’s Monuments and Memorials is a multi-year initiative of the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) that explores this question. The project looks back by critically examining the Civic Art Collection and looks forward by engaging artists and communities historically excluded from the commemorative landscape.

Artists Ambrose Trataris, Sophia Tupuola and Tricia Rainwater will share existing artworks, inspirations and works in progress. Presentations will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Angela Carrier, Senior Program Manager at SFAC.

Tricia Rainwater is a Choctaw and German Indigiqueer multimedia artist based in the Bay Area, with roots in the Central Valley and New Mexico. Her artistic portfolio which includes self-portraiture, sculpture, large-scale murals, and installations has been featured at SOMArts, the Berkeley Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure, ICA San Francisco, MOCA Toronto, and with Muz Collective and ICA San Jose, among others. In 2022, she received a grant from the SF Arts Commission to document herself along the Choctaw Trail of Tears. Rooted in themes of identity and grief, her work offers a perspective through the lens of a Choctaw survivor. Through her art, Tricia confronts and resists loss by revisiting sites of pain and creating spaces for personal and collective healing. Connect with Tricia Rainwater on Instagram.

Ambrose Trataris aka Cy Berspace (he/they) is a trans conceptual artist, technologist, and Drag performer based in the Bay Area. Through sculpture, installation, and performance he gives form to semiotic and social boundaries meant to govern our identity, sense of worth, and communal relations. His practice explores social movements occurring in Virtual Reality and mixed reality mediums as a safe space for trans people to explore identity, embodiment, and community building. Trataris is the recipient of the inaugural 2025 Art Basel Awards celebrating 36 visionary Medalists who are redefining the contemporary art landscape. They are an artist in residence at the 2025 Space Program and has been exhibited at the San Francisco Art Institutes 100th Anniversary Exhibition at the Walter & McBean Galleries (SF), Minnesota Street Project (SF), EFA Project Space (NYC), and exhibited public works in Greece as part of the Lakkos Artist in Residency program. Connect with Ambrose Trataris on Instagram.

Sophia Tupuola is a first-generation Sāmoan-American, born and raised in public housing in Bayview Hunters Point on the unceded land of the Ramaytush Ohlone, known as San Francisco, CA. Sophia’s liberation work for the Black and Brown body and community ignited as a response to her experience living through systemic inequity and the prevailing premature death of her family and community members. Her work and art includes grassroot capacity building, facilitating, organizing, and co-creating space between impacted community members, bureaucracy and institutional stakeholders to share in decision making power. Sophia is a Mama, Warrior and World Maker. Connect with Sophia Tupuola on Instagram.

Angela Carrier is a mother and cultural producer. She is currently Senior Program Manager for Monuments & Memorials at the San Francisco Arts Commission and was previously Director of Artist Engagement & Impact at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Her career includes time at California Historical Society, Brava! for Women in the Arts/Brava Theater Center, Community Music Center, Theatre Flamenco and Calle24 Latino Cultural District. She’s a member of the Bay Area Chapter of Independent Guåhan (Guam) and founded the Pulan Collective.

Connect: 

San Francisco Arts Commission - Website | San Francisco Arts Commission - Instagram | San Francisco Arts Commission - Facebook

Banner Image credits:

1. Diasporic Joy, Through the Concrete, Sophia Tupuola  
2. Apesvchi: An Ode to Community Care, Tricia Rainwater 
3. Set in Stone, Ambrose Trataris