Stairwell's | Bay Area Now 7 (BAN7)

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Exploring seldom seen areas of YBCA's gallery & theater buildings with Bay Area Now 7 exhibition partner Stairwell's—a roving curatorial platform that presents artwork in transient urban spaces, co-curated by artists Sarah Hotchkiss and Carey Lin.

Stairwell's is a series of temporary exhibitions accompanied by short publications and off-site group excursions in the San Francisco Bay Area. Its aim is to create a new model for local audiences to engage with art by shifting exhibitions out of traditional gallery settings and into transitional spaces like stairwells. Founded in 2011, Stairwell's has organized five exhibitions in five separate Bay Area venues, working with 14 artists to produce over a dozen new site-specific artworks to date. It has also launched five publications featuring content from 14 writers and presented five group excursions, or "Field Trips," co-led by eight different guest contributors around various indoor and outdoor locations. This roving curatorial platform is led by artists Sarah Hotchkiss and Carey Lin.



Through the work of artists who capture the spirit of "now," YBCA's signature triennial, Bay Area Now, brings to life current perspectives for both this art center and the regional art scene. In its seventh edition, BAN7 is experimenting with a new approach to curating that highlights collaborations with our region's artists and arts organizations and pushes beyond presentation toward a multidisciplinary celebration of the diversity of artistic practices in the Bay Area.

BAN7's core idea is to decentralize the curatorial process, and centralize the public presentation of some of the most exciting artistic voices in the region today.

As a common shared site for the presentation of works, BAN7 aims to create a lucid web of creative activity in the Bay Area. Our vision to create a platform for new work and experimentation is rooted in the belief that a decentralized curatorial process will open up an opportunity for a wider range of voices and create spaces for dialogue beyond the arts.

The visual arts component of Bay Area Now 7 has been reconceived through an open and rigorous selection process. By inviting noncommercial, small- to mid-size regional visual arts organizations to curate site-specific projects with Bay Area artists in YBCA's galleries, we are making visible the rich complexity of our many arts communities. Using an art fair style format in which the selected participants curate projects for specific locations throughout an exhibition space, BAN7 celebrates visual arts organizations as vital players in the local arts ecology. The exhibition aims to foster increased appreciation for Bay Area art, artists, and organizers, and to promote a greater understanding of the vast range of practices and individual visions that make the Bay Area such a vibrant center for contemporary art.