SF Arts Space 500 Capp Street Announces New Collective Leadership

Nonprofit arts space 500 Capp Street, located in David Ireland’s former Mission District home, will move forward as a collective, staff members announced on Tuesday. Under the new leadership structure — part of an effort to strive for “equity, inclusion, transparency, wellbeing, and collaboration,” according to a statement — five full-time staffers will run the nonprofit collectively, with equal pay and shared responsibility for the organization.

“We already worked collaboratively in a way, but we wanted a sense of ownership, a sense of agency on how things are run,” said Lian Ladia, who is in charge of curatorial, exhibitions and programming aspects of 500 Capp Street. “And because of the economic situation, we see executive leadership just struggling with fundraising.”

500 Capp Street’s move comes at a time when a significant number of Bay Area arts nonprofits are without permanent executive directors. Among them is Berkeley Art Center, which announced just days ago the departure of its co-directors due to financial cutbacks.

In addition to Ladia, the 500 Capp Street leadership team includes Amy Berk (education), Alexander An-Tai Hwang (operations and programming), Justin Nagle (collections and facilities) and Gui Veloso (communications and community partnerships).

Ladia said the decision partly came out of conversations and workshops the staff undertook on the issue of decolonization. Before settling into his art practice in San Francisco in the 1970s, Ireland worked as a safari guide and importer of artifacts; the 500 Capp Street collection contains objects from Ireland’s travels in Asia and East Africa.

Over time, critical questions of decolonization seeped into the very structure of the nonprofit’s day-to-day operations, Ladia said. The staff has actually been running the organization collectively since the departure of 500 Capp Street’s last interim executive director, Jennifer Rissler, in March.

In May, 500 Capp Street, Berkeley Art Center and Canyon Cinema held a collaborative fundraiser called the Spring Invitational. “We had a goal and we reached our goal,” Ladia said, pointing to the staff’s ability to raise money without an executive director. “That’s when we thought, we can actually do this.”

Responsibilities that once would have been expected of an executive director are now spread across the organization. “We’re all doing it as a board and staff,” Ladia said. “We’re all brainstorming through it.”

The staff is supported by a four-person board, a community advisors group and a “Creative Counsel.” Most are artists.

In addition to preserving Ireland’s artworks and home (which is an artwork unto itself), 500 Capp Street hosts exhibitions and residencies, inviting artists to engage with the house and collection. Presentations earlier this year included projects by Marcel Pardo Ariza and Mildred Howard. Artist yétúndé ọlágbajú was the nonprofit’s 2023–24 artist in residence, culminating in the presentation of a spiral fuels and fills.

“500 Capp Street was David Ireland’s studio. A place where he was trying things out, experimenting, finding solutions,” staff member Gui Veloso stated in Tuesday’s announcement. “That same kind of creative problem solving is what we try to inspire in our residencies and is what the House asks of all of us. This makes so much sense for us.”

Ladia acknowledges that this is a difficult time for Bay Area nonprofit arts organizations, but said the collective is excited about what this new leadership structure means for their future.

“Some organizations choose to furlough. Some organizations choose to close,” Ladia said. “But instead, for us, we chose to think about how our budget can work.”