Talks: 2024 Videos

Primary Source

Shaping San Francisco hosts Public Talks on a variety of topics, usually on Wednesday nights, about 18 times a year. Our topic themes vary, but we've grouped them over time into these categories: Art & Politics, Ecology, Historical Perspectives, Literary, and Social Movements.

Since Covid-19 disrupted our use of the 518 Valencia Street gallery for our Public Talks after March 2020, we started hosting outdoor "Urban Forum: Walk and Talks" which turned out to be as or more popular than our original Public Talks series... Many of them were recorded on video which you can see on the video pages covering 2020-2023. This page may include some Walk & Talks from 2024 but will be primarily indoor Talks hosted at 518 Valencia.

September 11, 2024

Muni Labor, Muni Love

An amazing chance to listen to folks who keep our public transit system moving (Muni operator Brendan), extremely less conflict-ridden (MTAP or Muni Transit Assistants Program reps Daisy and Sharia), and clean (transit car cleaner Carmine). Lia Smith and Keith Scott Ferris took us beyond their book, Muni is My Ride, to showcase the hidden ways these hardworking folks shape the City. We even enjoyed a trivia quiz including Keith’s sketches from the book and Muni parlance.

July 5, 2024

1934 Big Strike 90th Anniversary

On the 90th anniversary of “Bloody Thursday” (July 5, 1934), a series of presentations revisit the actual Big Strike on San Francisco’s waterfront that led to a General Strike in 1934, as well as tracing the pat of the Longshoremen’s Union (ILWU) in the subsequent decades. In 1960 the ILWU signed the Mechanization & Modernization Agreement, the first trade union deal of its kind. Following that they later conceded to the rise of “steady men” running container cranes, undercutting the power of their unique institution, the Hiring Hall. Further discussion on the long arc of deskilling and automation, the many episodes in which the ILWU rank and file blocked cargoes and refused to unload ships, and recent organizing on the Alcatraz ferry are all addressed too. Speakers: Chris Carlsson, Joel Schor, Gifford Hartman, and Jack Calvin. (Sorry for audio falling in and out of sync with the speakers. Editing problems!)

May 22, 2024

Rainbow Grocery Cooperative

RAINBOW GROCERY Cooperative, a long-time supporter of Shaping San Francisco’s Public programming, will be our featured guests. Rainbow has been a steady presence in San Francisco’s Mission District for almost a half century. Come meet current staffers, learn about the post-pandemic issues facing the store, hear about the advantages of cooperative self-management, and bring your questions about food politics, grocery price inflation, flood recovery, and whatever else you’ve been wondering about.

May 8, 2024

Art& Politics: Hughen/Starkweather

“Conversations, interviews, and deep research are a significant piece of their process for every project they take on. Feeling a ‘responsibility to educate the viewer, to give them a window in,’ they have, over the course of the last decade, developed a nuanced strategy for avoiding what many artists fail to acknowledge as a problem: leaving their audiences out in the cold. . .When the colors and shapes of a nonrepresentational work of art rearrange themselves into remembrance or recognition, magic happens. Hughen/Starkweather describe this as ‘closing the space between abstraction and language.’” —Excerpt from Selene Foster article on Hughen/Starkweather's Adjacent Shores, April 2016.

April 24, 2024

History of Monopoly (the game)

David Giesen brings his extraordinary collection of original 1907 Monopoly game artifacts to anchor his presentation of the fascinating political history of the game, with roots in the anti-monopoly politics championed by Henry George in the 19th century. Following the presentation we will have a GAME NIGHT!

April 10, 2024

Life and Death in a Great American City

Cities grow, cities change. Some businesses and institutions thrive, while others die off and are replaced. In this joint presentation of words and images, Lorri Ungaretti (Vanished San Francisco), and Alec Scott (Oldest San Francisco) speak to the history of our great, sometimes troubled city, what's been lost over the years, what's stuck around. The discussion ranged widely, from science to religion, from food to drink, from sports to shopping, from sex to death.

March 26, 2024

Cultivating Food Resilience and Combating Global Challenges

The French Punk Gardener Eric Lenoir presents a discussion on territorial food resilience, combating biodiversity collapse, and addressing global warming effects.