Next Three Events:
Download the Spring 2026 calendar as a pdf here.
Saturday, February 21, Noon-3 pm
Presidio to Mission Dolores
A Walking Tour
Embark on a cross-city walk along roads that lead to Mission Dolores as part of our year-long case study of the Padre Junipero Serra statue. Walk with us on pathways trod by lonely soldiers stationed at the far end of the Spanish empire across the hills to Mission Dolores, these routes having been used for centuries before their arrival. Uncover your own lost landscapes as we walk between the coast and inland water sources, locations of 18th century Spanish colonial settlements that irrevocably transformed lifeways here. Moving through present-day urban San Francisco landscapes, along Goldsworthy tree lines and Lover’s Lane, we investigate: How and what are we remembering now? What would, could, should be memorialized? Do you feel like you have a right to be memorialized or represented in the historical record? What parts of the more-than-human world ought to be represented in our efforts to commemorate the past? Participants are encouraged to arrive an hour early to visit the museum inside the Presidio Officers Club.
Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission
RSVP to shaping@foundsf.org
We welcome donations. Donate now!
Wed., February 25, 7:30pm
Memory Keeping from Indigenous Perspectives
Public Talk at 518 Valencia
Shaping San Francisco’s year-long case study of the Padre Junípero Serra statue included a folklife-based, community-led research process centered on memory-keeping practices. Indigenous community researchers explored everyday practices from their own cultures that carry collective knowledge. The researchers included members of Urban Native communities, Indigenous migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, and urban youth. Their research invites reflection on how genocide, relocation, and migration continue to erode Indigenous ways of knowing, and how communities continue to protect and hold on to them. The process was facilitated by storyteller Adriana Camarena. Several community researchers will share their findings. The discussion will be presented in Spanish and English.
Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials, a project of San Francisco Arts Commission
We welcome donations. Donate now!
Saturday, March 7, 12-3pm
Noe Valley History
A Walking Tour
Explore the southeastern edge of Rancho San Miguel. This walk highlights the agricultural and industrial history of Noe Valley and its heights, from Billy Goat Hill through Fairmount Heights to the east side of Twin Peaks. We walk along sites of former dairies and quarries, through early and modernist residential developments, along Slow Streets and up and down staircases, and more. Be prepared for steep slopes and great views! With SFPL Noe Valley Branch
We welcome donations. Donate now!
Explore Shaping San Francisco:
Ecology Emerges
Discussions and reflections on the history of Bay Area ecological activism, based on oral histories documenting the past 50 years.
Ecology Emerges is an oral history gathering project to explore the past 50 years of ecological activism in the Bay Area and the role that individual and institutional memories play in the development, policy proposals, and interrelationships that together make up the existing networks of ecological politics. We document the living ecological activist movement, in their own words, but also in a larger context of urban growth and globalization.
Oral Histories
Shaping San Francisco, as part of our ongoing work, sits down with people who have stories to tell and conducts oral history interviews.
Check them out here.
"Editor's Pick Tour" from FoundSF.org
Comprised of over 1,400 pages, and 2,500 historical photos, the wiki-based archive FoundSF.org is the product of hundreds of contributors, regular people who were compelled by the chance to investigate some piece of this City's past.
Shaping San Francisco is fiscally sponsored by Independent Arts & Media, a California non-profit corporation.