Rethinking Memorialization
Junipero Serra Statue Re-examined
Artist Activations
Shaping San Francisco, from March 2025–March 2026, was chosen as a Community Engagement Consultant by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the "Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments and Memorials" project. For this case study, we examined memory and memorialization in relation to the Padre Junipero Serra monument (one of several public monuments toppled on Juneteenth 2020 in the wake of the May 2020 police murder of George Floyd) by facilitating artist activations, community history circles, and public events exploring this history. Four other monuments were explored by local community organizations: Christopher Columbus by California Migration Museum, Dewey Monument by SOMA Pilipinas, Francis Scott Key by Youth Speaks, and Ulysses S. Grant by American Indian Cultural District.
Part of Shaping Legacy: San Francisco Monuments & Memorials,
a project of San Francisco Arts Commission, with Adriana Camarena, Kim Shuck, and Chris Cuadrado. Thanks to Association of Ramaytush Ohlone for guidance throughout the year.
graphic by Chris "L7" Cuadrado
Artist Activations
Roughly 100 Relocated Urban Baskets Contemplating the Absence of Junipero Serra
photo of Kim Shuck's weathered baskets by LisaRuth Elliott
Kim Shuck’s Artist Activation utilizes her handwoven baskets as a primary technology.
For Kim and other indigenous people, Padre Junipero Serra is a symbol of the worthlessness of indigenous peoples’ lives—past, present, and future. In continuation of the Shaping Legacy Case Study Team’s Participatory Action Research process centering the lived experiences, knowledge, and memory practices of communities impacted by colonial legacies and displacement, Kim promotes the message for the indigenous communities of San Francisco (and beyond): “You are not less than your ancestors.”
In Golden Gate Park, near the Music Concourse, the space of the plinth and landscape around the former location of the Padre Junipero Statue are the site of placing Kim’s almost 100 baskets in an array, then photographed during a photo shoot in March 2026. As an extension of her “Mission Project”, a poem written at each individual Spanish mission, she includes a poetry response to the toppled statue and resulting from the process of basket creation.
750 postcards of the photo were designed and printed. Postcards, distributed at public events and for use in engagement with the public around the Serra statue in particular, provide general education and awareness of the Shaping Legacy Initiative and a point of reflection on materiality and legacy of the Serra statue and others like it.
Kim Shuck placing baskets on landscaping below Serra plinth, March 4, 2026.
photo by LisaRuth Elliott
Kim Shuck and Doug Salin organizing baskets for Serra plinth installation, March 4, 2026.
photo by LisaRuth Elliott
Kim Shuck with her handwoven baskets laid out prior to installation, with Shaping Legacy Program Manager Angela Carrier and photographer Doug Salin.
Roughly 100 Relocated Urban Baskets Contemplating the Absence of Junipero Serra
Installation and baskets by Kim Shuck
Photo by Douglas A. Salin
Talking Monument—Mobile Multimedia Installation
A Public Talk and Premiere Screening at 518 Valencia Street
Chris "L7" Cuadrado's artist activation uses multimedia technology to create an alternative statue emerging from the rubble of what has been torn down. Chris investigates the act of reappropriation to rebuild the memory of Junipero Serra.
Based on collected ephemera, photographs, video footage, and sourced miniature replicas of Serra, he presents a screening and sound sculpture as a meditation on the figure of Padre Junipero Serra. Viewers are invited to reflect on monuments, legacy, and public space.
Chris also offers a collection of visual art using the stories of indigenous life of Yelamu, reinterpretation of the statue, reflections on the specific missions Serra is credited with starting, and imagery foregrounding landscape in place of inserted mythmaking.
