Screening & Panel: Shaping Legacy Mini Filmfest
Experience the short films produced for the Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials project with the artists and communities that created them.
Films include artist proposals and creative responses to several monuments in the Civic Art Collection including Francis Scott Key, Padre Junipero Serra, Christopher Columbus and The Dewey Monument.
Each film will screen, followed by a moderated panel discussion:
- The Art of Memory trailer, 1000 Thread Films
- Shaping Legacy Artist Circle, The Justice Collective
- Youth Speaks Monument Circles, Lowdownhaus / Thayer N. Walker
- Gunitaan ng Pagtutuwid sa Kasaysayan - Dewey Monument, Nix Guirre with SOMA Pilipinas
- IndigenizeSF & Shaping Legacy Celebration, American Indian Cultural District
- City of Immigrants – Cloud Monument, California Migration Museum with Lauren Bartone
- The Italians of San Francisco, Davide Fiore with California Migration Museum
- 9 Effigies for Serra, Chris “L7” Cuadrado with Shaping San Francisco
Panelists
- Chris “L7” Cuadrado, Visual & Multimedia artist
- Nix Guirre, Multidisciplinary Storyteller
- Katy Long, Founder and Director, California Migration Museum
Moderator
- John Jota Leaños, Professor of Film and Digital Media, UC Santa Cruz
This program is part of the Power & Public Memory: Shaping Legacy Program Series, which uplifts community stories and artists’ proposals for reimagined commemorative landscapes and inclusive spaces of public memory. The series runs through November, with subsequent programs on the first Wednesday of each month.
BIOS
Chris “L7” Cuadrado is a Xicanoriqueño writer, visual & multimedia artist, youth educator and cultural organizer from Inglewood, CA, working in the Mission. Chris works in the political traditions of oppressed peoples, seeking to challenge, dismantle and heal from legacies of conquest through cultural work as resistance. Chris attended UCSC where he majored in Latin American Latino Studies, participated in creative arts and was an organizer in several on campus student-led efforts for Critical Race & Ethnic Studies.
Nix Guirre is a multidisciplinary storyteller with roots in film, photography and design. With over a decade of experience behind the camera and in the editing room, they use digital media to explore stories that connect, question and resonate. A graduate of USC’s Film and TV Production program, Nix has worked across genres—from social justice documentaries to abstract motion pieces—bringing both technical craft and emotional depth to every project. Currently based between Brooklyn and San Francisco, Nix works as the Marketing Coordinator for the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, where they continue to bridge art, community and cultural storytelling. Their work has been featured by institutions like SF MoMA and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and screened at film festivals across the country.
Katy Long is Founder and Director of the California Migration Museum. Katy has worked on refugee and migration issues for over a decade. Born in the UK, she became an immigrant herself when she moved to San Francisco in 2014. Katy has held faculty positions at the Universities of Oxford, LSE and Edinburgh, as well as a Visiting Fellowship at Stanford. She's worked on a range of projects with organizations including the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the International Labor Organization, the World Bank and the Migration Policy Institute. Her work has appeared on BBC Radio Documentaries and in The Guardian and The Washington Post.
John Jota Leaños is a Xicano/Italian-American/Chumash interdisciplinary artist, documentary animator and social art practitioner committed to reclaiming histories, amplifying voices of resistance and unsettling colonial narratives. His work moves between animation, public art, installation and performance, using visual storytelling to bridge past and present, honoring histories, imagining futures.
Shaping Legacy is a multi-year commitment to critically examine the monuments and memorials in San Francisco’s Civic Art Collection. The project will engage communities that have historically been excluded from discussions, produce an Audit report, create opportunities for artist-led activations in public space and support temporary installations that reimagine future monuments and memorials in our city.
The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy. SFAC programs include: Civic Art Collection, Civic Design Review, Community Investments, Public Art, SFAC Galleries and Art Vendor Licensing.
Banner image 9 Effigies for Serra by Chris “L7” Cuadrado with Shaping San Francisco