IMPACT REPORT
2023/24
“… THIS YEAR WILL GO DOWN IN OUR HISTORY AS A MAJOR TIPPING POINT TO WORK AT A NEW SCALE WITH WHAT WE’VE LEARNED OVER THE PAST 34 YEARS.”
2023/24 YEAR IN REVIEW
BANNER GROWTH!
Welcome to 18th Street’s 2023/24 Impact Report. It was a banner growth year! We created and deployed the 18th Street California Creative Corps and took our impact statewide for the first time. With the Corps, we piloted 18 artist-led well-being projects across California. We scaled our local culture-mapping processes and well-being initiatives with a major grant for artist work-force development. And we brought in RAND Corporation to help us measure the community impact.
This project transformed our capacity to hire and support artists working across the state. We are excited by the new well-being movement and its recognition of the valuable role artists play in it.
We also received major funding from LA County and the Perenchio Foundation to renovate our aging warehouses at Olympic and 18th Street in Santa Monica. But moving out of our offices temporarily was a great excuse to assess our archives, too!
Our foundational artist residency programs, exhibitions, and public events remained strong this year. We are so grateful to all of our enduring funding partners and the artists themselves who make this community a thriving site of creativity.
Since its beginning 18th Street has been dedicated to ensuring artist’s work is valued as an essential part of a vibrant, just and healthy society and that creative action is a vital part of individual wellbeing. Yet this year will go down in our history as a major tipping point to work at a new scale with what we’ve learned over the past 34 years. You helped us get here, thank you! We look forward to the work ahead with you to build the bridges and networks necessary for real artists to be valued and paid for the impactful work they do, in and beyond the gallery.
Thank you to the artists, organizations, partners, staff, alumni, and supporters who have made this work possible.
Sincerely,
Jan Williamson, Executive Director
Photo: Coral von Zumwalt Photography
Cover: Xavier “Xico” Garza, Photo: Coral von Zumwalt Photography
CENTERING ARTISTS IN THE ROLE OF CREATING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
At 18th Street, we believe by paying artists and culture bearers equitably to work in communities we can grow the health and well-being of individuals and help alter the course of underserved and unseen communities as a whole. Since 2015, we have commissioned over 60 such artist-led projects with multiple partnerships that aim to drive social cohesion and well-being. These projects bring communities together, further our strategic goals and those of our partners, and inform public policy.
IMPACT ON ARTISTS
“2023/24 — 18th Street California
Creative Corps launched as a statewide pilot project at the intersection of community well-being and artist workforce development. With a $3.3M state contract from California Arts Council, we hired 18 artists and paid full-time salaries to seed wellbeing projects in rural and urban communities across California. RAND Corporation is helping to measure the impact.
We were thrilled to be selected for this project. Being part of such an esteemed cohort is an honor; the Fellows are deeply inspiring; there’s a lot we can learn from each other. This recognition from the state of the value of integrating art into broader societal processes is truly heartening.
—REANNE ESTRADA
18th Street Arts Center California Creative Corps
Fellow 2023/24, Co-Principal & Creative Director, Public Matters
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IMPACT ON COMMUNITIES
We want to showcase the power of creative reckoning with forces often felt too insidious to challenge. This way we can recognize and remember all those who have passed through this neighborhood and have left their mark on City Heights in San Diego.
—SHIMPEI TAKEDA
18th Street Arts Center California Creative Corps Fellow 2023/24
18 35+ 11 23
$65K SALARY $50K PRODUCTION BUDGET with benefits for one year ARTIST FELLOWS PUBLIC-FACING EVENTS by the 18 Creative Corps fellows COMMUNITY PARTNERS working with the 18 fellows PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS provided to the fellows
Our projects aim to directly insert art into the everyday lives of Bakersfield residents— art that is more than civic beautification and tackles difficult but important topics. Through engagements with themes like incarceration and labor, we aim to illuminate the intersecting forces of power that shape life in Kern County and beyond.
18th Street Arts Center California Creative Corps Fellow 2023/24, Border Patrol Collective
—ELIZABETH SPAVENTO
Jared Huag (Border Patrol)
Elizabeth Spavento (Border Patrol)
Meg Ahn (Border Patrol)
TAKING OUR LEARNING TO SCALE
From Yreka near the Oregon border to City Heights in San Diego, 18th Street Creative Corps
Fellows are collaborating with communities, bringing people together through art projects that activate residents, address systemic barriers, and build healthy neighborhoods.
THE 2023/24 CALIFORNIA CREATIVE CORPS FELLOWS
FOSTERING POSITIVE SOCIAL CHANGE IN WAYS
Ethel + Carlo Zafranco
Photo: Ruby Varela, Pixels & Prints Miki’ala Catalfano
Nyingv Jae Saechao
Photo: Megan Quinlan ASTU 6
Photo: Luke Atwood Abiol and Kyle Emery-Peck
Cecilia Peña-Govea 5
Photo: Maria del Rio Lan Ngô (QTViet Cafe) 7
Photo: Lara Kaur
Hài Võ (QTViet Cafe) 7 Photo: Sal Tran
EXHIBITIONS, MURALS AND WORKSHOPS
18th Street commissions new artwork and curatorial research from notable LA-based artists and curators and presents it in exhibitions and public art. The Artist Lab series identifies and supports LA-based art producers at pivotal points in their development to reach new audiences with their ideas.
FREE PUBLIC PROGRAMS
From Sound Baths to Juneteenth Festivals, 18th Street offers a variety of free art workshops, film screenings, jazz concerts, and artist talks every month at our locations in Santa Monica.
Diaz’s exhibition took a deep dive into American Mexican identity and the cultural context of social upheaval and justice through the artist’s recollections and imagination.
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2 6
18th Street gave me my first institutional solo show in Los Angeles. From the wonderful curation of Irene Georgia Tsatsos, 18th Street tremendously supported my work, opened up new professional opportunities and venues that reached multiple and diverse audiences. I am forever grateful.
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Live performance during Frieze LA. Hope Mohr curated this performance in response to Ranu Mukherjee’s Dear Future exhibition. Photo: Sasha Renee
Visitors experiencing Karla Diaz’s Wait ’til Your Mother Gets Home exhibition. Photo: Sasha Renee
Annual Make Jazz performance. Performed as the culmination of the Herb Alpert Residency. Photo: Sasha Renee
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
By offering creative space, time, and visibility, 18th Street Arts Center’s artist residency programs help artists to experiment and create new works. We support visual, multi-disciplinary and performing artists. These studios are subsidized by 18th Street and its partners.
Cristallina Fischetti is best known for abstract works which are a fusion of vibrant colors and gestural movements. Fischetti draws on her South American and Italian heritage to create paintings, murals, installations, and works on paper.
VISITING ARTISTS from USA and abroad
COUNTRIES REPRESENTED THIS YEAR (Ukraine, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Scotland, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Israel, England)
Catalfano, Kat Crab, John Crahan, Jessica Cusick, Jamini Davies, Malindi Davies, Marina Day, Adar Baran Deger, Richard Erickson, Kate Flather, John Fleck, John P. Francis, John Frane, Anne Gauldin, Yvette Gellis, Karen Ginsberg, Janice Gordillo, Stephanie Nicole Gordillo and George deVera, Phranc Gottlieb and Lisa Freeman, Daniel Greaney, Claire Haasl, Larkin Higgins, Asuka Hisa, Deborah Irmas, Karen Johanson, Annette Johnson,
Photo: Sasha Renee
have made this work possible.
OUR PURPOSE
Conceived as a radical think tank in the shape of an artist community, 18th Street Arts Center is a globally recognized catalyst for deploying artistic imagination to meet society’s needs. Through its residency programs, artist commissions, exhibitions, events, and socially engaged art-making initiatives,18SAC provides artists with a center for artistic creation, innovation, collaboration and growth. We curate an environment for artists and the public to directly engage in creating healthy places together.
Artist Residencies
OUR PURPOSE
Commissions, Exhibits & Workshops
Socially Engaged Art Making
18th Street Arts Center 1639 18th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90404
18thstreet.org | @18thstreetarts