Arts & Culture
2026 Updates
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Pilaster Columns at 3300 Mission with Kota Ezawa
Mural: California College for the Arts with Vanessa Shive Mural: University High School with Jason Budowski |
2025 Updates
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730 Stanyan
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Main Branch of San Francisco Public Library
In October 2025, San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) and San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) announced the completed installation of a new temporary mural by artist Belen Islas, created in partnership with Dr. Jonathan Cordero, Executive Director of the Association of the Ramaytush Ohlone, at the San Francisco Main Library.
Titled atemtuhe meaning “to listen,” the 500-square-foot mural will be on view at the Main Library’s atrium along the stairwell leading to the Fisher Children’s Center on the second floor through Fall 2027. The mural honors the Ramaytush people’s enduring presence on the San Francisco Peninsula and reflects Indigenous traditions of storytelling, ceremony, and the sharing of intergenerational knowledge. Read more about this project here. |
2024 Updates
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The People's Palace, San Francisco City Hall
In May 2025, Joanna Haigood directed The People's Palace at San Francisco City Hall. Developed in collaboration with the ARO, among many others, aerialists and performers were suspended in the air, flew through the rotunda, and incorporated the architecture with large scale projections, bringing light to inclusive narratives that more accurately reflect San Francisco's diverse and dynamic cultures and community. Through performance, music, storytelling, and immersive technologies, The People’s Palace invited the audience to actively engage these new narratives, seeing themselves within the broader context of the city and appreciating the richness of diverse perspectives. To learn more about this project, click here.
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Lamchin Interpretive Center, Filoli Historic House & World-Class Garden
The ARO created an interpretive center at Filoli at the former Sally MacBride Nature Center. Named after the original Lamchin tribe, the center will share Ramaytush Ohlone history and culture, especially our responsibility to care for all of nature. Included will be presentations on the adverse impact of colonization on the natural world and on the current work of the ARO. Learn more about the Lamchen Center here.
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2023 Updates
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Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 List
The ARO was included in the 2023 YBCA 100 list celebrating artists, activists, and leaders who are committed to building regenerate and equitable communities. Learn about the YCBA 100 list here and see our profile as an awardee here
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Jacob Lawrence Award
Sandy Rodriguez was awarded $10,000 in recognition of her outstanding achievement in the the visual arts from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dr. Jonathan Cordero collaborated with Rodriguez on the art installation and art catalogue for Visualizing Place at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library, highlighting its diverse and extensive map collection, showing the evolution of the printed atlas and cartography from the period of European contact, to contemporary maps displaying cultural, social, and imaginary narratives, to maps that show California as an island. Read more about this project and her work in general here.
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Beyond Land Acknowledgement: Three Part Series on Indigeneity in the Arts
In collaboration with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), the ARO composed a three-part series on Indigeneity in the Arts for arts and cultures organizations in San Francisco, focused upon Indigenous Protocol, Cultural Appropriation, and Native Spirituality in Art, respectively.
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2022 Updates
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Redwood City Mural, Jefferson Ave Underpass
In December of 2022, Redwood City celebrated the Racial Equity Mural located along the underpass along Jefferson Ave near City Hall. Gregg Castro, Jonathan Cordero, and artist Rachel Wolfe-Goldsmith are pictured here (right).
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JKF Boulevard Mural, San Francisco Golden Gate Park
Jonathan Cordero, in collaboration with muralist ChiChai, have painted a mural on the roadway along JFK Blvd in Golden Gate Park. The mural project is being put together by Paint the Void and Illuminate SF. The mural is entitled, "Care for Mother Earth," and emphasizes the interconnectedness and interdependence of human and nature. It shows half-human/half-plant hands caring for the earth and fostering harmony and health in the world, depicted in the sphere of a Native basket.
On the left, ChiChai standing at the mural's edge. The mural is on the road immediately south of the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.
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Pacifica Murals Project
2020-2022
Starting in 2020, ARO consulted with the Pacifica Murals Project on a four-wall mural, each wall painted by a different artist, that advocates for unity in diversity. This multipart mural was designed to help, heal and open the hearts and minds within our community by creating public art pieces that facilitate deeper thought and discussion about our native history, our environment, and the importance of inclusion within our community. |
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International Women's Dance Festival
In partnership with Demonstration Gardens, the ARO is co-sponsored the International Women's Dance event in the newly renovated Federal Plaza on March 10, 2022.
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Intricacies of Art and Nature
On display from July to September of 2022, an art exhibition at the ODC Theater gallery was curated by the ARO. It highlihts the three artists (Anna Sidana, Sally Weber, and Heidi Quante) and their exploration of the aesthetic, biological, spiritual, and political impact of nature on their and our lives and drew out the unconscious connection. Whether simple or complex, our connection to the natural world shapes our lives in ways that are often intangible to our everyday consciousness.
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2021 Updates
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Mission Bay Project
The ARO consulted with Kat Covell on a series of interpretive bay panels that focus on the history of Mission Bay and biotechnology. Several panels of the first two bays include information about the history of the Ramaytush Ohlone in San Francisco.
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WeAreWater
WeAreWater is an immersive audio and video artwork by Heidi Q, illuminating the social and environmental history of SF’s relationship to water. The tour brings the sounds of submerged streams to life as well as the relationship to water of those living above these waterways. Diverse voices of the Mission community sharing their personal and cultural relationship to water all spoken in their Native Languages.
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Mural at 16th & Dolores
Artist Rachel Znerold has been asked by the Catholic Church to paint a mural along the blue wall surrounding the parking lot for St. Matthews Church at the corner of 16th and Dolores St. The mural will feature native plants and landscapes. Rachel is working with the ARO and the American Indian Cultural District to ensure Native participation in the creation of the mural.
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National Queer Arts Festival
Natalia Vigil of the QCC worked with the ARO to create an artistic rendering of a land acknowledgement for the National Queer Arts Festival May-June 2021 in San Francisco. The land acknowledgement recognizes many of the Bay Area tribal groups, including the Ramaytush Ohone. We appreciate the creativity!
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East Palo Alto Mural Project
The ARO consulted with The Scape Martinez Projects Team on one panel of a multi-panel mural, part of which will feature the Ramaytush Ohlone across history. The mural will be located in East Palo Alto. Samples of Scape Martinez' work can be easily found online.
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2020 Updates
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"Our Ancestral Homeland"
Jonathan Cordero contributed to an e-flux special issue entitled, "On Indigenous Land." The editors of the journal framed the special issue thusly, "This account represents the institution’s attempt to frame the expansion of a college teaching art, architecture, and design on top of Indigenous cultural remains as a gesture of respect, rather than the latest iteration in a long history of colonial appropriations and obliterations of Indigenous peoples, lands, and things."
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“Concluding Thoughts: On Decolonizing the Study of Mission Art
Jonathan Cordero was invited to write the conclusion to a special issue of Journal of Latin American and Latinx Visual Cultures. In the introduction of his article, Dr. Cordero writes, "In addition to correcting the historical and intellectual record, the approach dismantles the fantasy heritage or romanticized accounts of the “mission era” that continue to undermine the real and present consequences of colonization and genocide of Native peoples."
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