Next Three Events:
Download the Fall 2026 calendar as a pdf here.
Wednesday, October 14, 7:30 pm
AI and the Future of Academic Labor
Public Talk at 518 Valencia
Journalist Kari Lydersen in conversation with Robert Ovetz, author of the forthcoming book AI and the Future of Academic Labor.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are increasingly being integrated into higher education, putting the very mission and work of learning, research and teaching at risk of automation. Higher education unions are only beginning to address the impacts of AI on academic workers. This conversation will explore how academic labor struggles vs AI are connected to broader global struggles against digital labor exploitation along the global AI supply chain, from data workers, to data centers, to the campus.
Moderator Kari Lydersen is a Chicago-based journalist and author, and leads the Medill Investigative Lab-Chicago at Northwestern University’s journalism school. Robert Ovetz is Senior Lecturer in Political Science, teaches Labour Relations in the Master of Public Administration program at San José State University, and author and editor of six books on the global labor movement.
We welcome donations. Donate now!
A Changing Commons
Walking tours
Friday, October 16, Noon-2:30 PM
Sunday, November 8, Noon-2 PM
Registration with SFPL, beginning October 2, required for each of these tours.
Shaping San Francisco leads a walking tour of various sites in Downtown and SOMA that evoke scenes, feelings, and histories so well wrought in Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan, chosen by the San Francisco Public Library's One City One Book program. From high rises to an amble through Chinatown to rooftop outlooks to various memorials to a variety of elevated sites, this tour is sure to transport your imagination and sense of the city backwards and forwards in time.
Rain or shine! Just under 2 miles walking, with a couple steep slopes and a staircase.
A Sprited Tour of Colma Cemeteries!
Sunday, November 1, 12 noon-3 pm
Bicycle Tour
We take a spirited tour of several massive cemeteries where famous San Franciscans are buried. We'll visit Woodlawn, Home of Peace and Hills of Eternity, Cypress Lawn, and Holy Cross.
We return to Colma or South SF BART together at end of tour.
RSVP requiredand click here to donate in advance!
Photo by Chris Carlsson
Explore Shaping San Francisco:
Rethinking Memorialization
Shaping San Francisco, from March 2025–March 2026, was chosen as a Community Engagement Consultant by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the "Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments and Memorials" project. For this case study, we examined memory and memorialization in relation to the Padre Junipero Serra monument (one of several public monuments toppled on Juneteenth 2020 in the wake of the May 2020 police murder of George Floyd) by facilitating artist activations, community history circles, and public events exploring this history. Four other monuments were explored by local community organizations: Christopher Columbus by California Migration Museum, Dewey Monument by SOMA Pilipinas, Francis Scott Key by Youth Speaks, and Ulysses S. Grant by American Indian Cultural District.
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 out our full roster of interviews on Foundsf.org
"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.