The Facilities, Arts and Communities Experts (FACE) group is the panel of local experts who are experienced arts, culture, and community development leaders that will assist Community Vision with making funding recommendations. Panelists bring unique geographic and industry perspectives, and are deeply-rooted members of their communities.
[boomerang_blue_header blue_header_subtitle=”Facilities, Arts, and Communities Experts Bios”]SOMA Cultural Anchor Fund[/boomerang_blue_header]
Sean Greene
Rhiannon Evans MacFadyen
Rachel Lastimosa
Carla Laurel
Olivia Malabuyo Tablante
Erica Waltemade
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Sean Greene | The Transgender District
Sean Greene is a fundraiser, program innovator, and advocate for transgender and queer people in San Francisco. He is currently the Deputy Director of The Transgender District, the first legally recognized transgender district in the world, where he is spearheading resource generation for the organization’s innovative economic empowerment programs to cultivate transgender business ownership and safety in the Tenderloin. He is the former Development Director of the GLBT Historical Society and has led development and volunteer efforts at Positive Resource Center (PRC), Breast Cancer Emergency Fund and AIDS Emergency Fund. Sean spent four years on the Board of Directors for the Folsom Street Fair overseeing the Entertainment and Volunteer departments.
Rhiannon Evans MacFadyen | Emerging Arts Professionals / SFBA
A San Francisco-born curator, consultant, and project-based artist, Rhiannon has 20 years of experience in the performing and visual arts. Inspired by “productive discomfort” and a multiplicity of identities, her curatorial focus is on projects that push boundaries of scale, scope, medium, venue, and dialogue. Her cross-discipline personal work engages symbols, identity, communication, and the unseen. Her projects have appeared in KQED, SF Chronicle, at YBCA, USF, JCCSF, Open Engagement, and many others. She sits on the board of SOMArts Cultural Center and on advisory committees for Root Division, Pro Arts, and Sites Unseen. She is the Founder and Director of A Simple Collective + Black & White Projects.
Rachel Lastimosa | SOMA Pilipinas – SF Filipino Cultural Heritage District
Rachel Lastimosa is an interdisciplinary artist, musician, composer and producer contributing to the Bay Area arts scene since 2000. She has toured nationally and internationally as a performing artist and theatrical musician. Ms. Lastimosa directed and produced Late Night with Joe Cascasan, a live show featuring international solidarity missionaries and the Lumad communities they visit to support the indigenous right to ancestral land and self determination. She was featured in Tree City Legends, written by Dennis Kim, directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph, with Campo Santo’s residency at Intersection for the Arts. She served as the musical director and performed as part of Magic Theater’s “Sheparding America” celebration in Holy Crime, a collaboration directed by Sean San José and ACT’s Associate Artistic Director, the late Mark Rucker.
In 2017, Ms. Lastimosa composed and produced the score for the Isabella Duncan nominated dance theater production – Kularts’ Incarcerated 6×9, under the direction of Alleluia Panis and media by Wilfred Galila. She also composed and performed the score for Kularts’ Lakbai Diwa Diasporic Spirit Dance Ritwal at Yerba Buena Gardens and in the streets of SOMA Pilipinas (2020-2021).
Carla Laurel | West Bay Pilipino Multi-Service Center
Carla is the Director of a nonprofit organization serving recent immigrant Filipino families and underserved youth, families and seniors in the South of Market neighborhood. Over the years, she helped West Bay advocate and launch the first culturally sensitive College Prep program for Filipino youth in SoMa and more recently, helped with the purchase of the organization’s own center in SoMa. As Executive Director of West Bay, Carla supports West Bay’s mission to provide culturally sensitive services to enhance the quality of life of all underserved youth, seniors and their families.
Olivia Malabuyo Tablante | Gerbode Foundation
Olivia Malabuyo Tablante is currently the Gerbode Foundation’s Administrative Manager and Program Director of the Special Awards in the Arts Program. The Special Awards Program has funded arts Bay Area presenting organizations to commission the works of individual artists since 1989. The Special Awards in the Arts Program currently supports the creation of new works in dance, theater production, and music composition. These nationally respected awards have helped underwrite culturally and aesthetically diverse, acclaimed new works by prominent artists and emerging ones. Prior to joining the Gerbode Foundation in 2006, Olivia served as Los Cenzontles Mexican Arts Center’s Administrative Manager as well as Post Production Manager and Production Manager for Los Cenzontles’s PBS-series Cultures of Mexico in California from 2004-06. Olivia also served as San Francisco’s Filipinx American Bindlestiff Studio’s Managing Director and Project Manager for the construction of the new blackbox theater from 2002-2004.
Erica Waltemade | SOMA West Community Benefit District
As Director of Placemaking for SOMA West Community Benefit District, Erica works to enhance and activate public space within the SOMA neighborhood through public art, design, and landscaping in order to promote the neighborhood as a unique arts and cultural destination in the heart of San Francisco. Central to this work are the close partnerships with the neighborhoods’ residents, business owners, nonprofit organizations, and cultural districts in order to ensure that community wisdom and knowledge are at the guiding factor to each and every project undertaken.
Erica brings over six years of experience to SOMA West CBD in the realms of art, architecture, marketing, and community engagement. Prior to SOMA West, Erica was Placemaking Program Manager in the Lower Polk Neighborhood of San Francisco, where she worked to program the network of alleyways that stem from Polk Street. Projects included the Lower Polk Alleyways District Vision Plan, Sidewalk Cinema, a film series on Fern Alley that was done in collaboration with the SF Urban Film Fest, the California Cable Car Turnaround Design Study, the Myrtle Alley BARK!let parklet for dogs, the Hemlock Alley Cultural Mural Project, and Lower Polk Plaza, an outdoor dining program on Austin Alley created in partnership with local businesses in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Erica holds a Masters Degree in Contemporary Art History and Theory from the University of Glasgow, and a Bachelors in Fine Art and Art History from California State University, Northridge. In her work within the community, she applies her curiosity and passion for art, culture, and design to make the neighborhood a more equitable, healthy, and unique place for all.
