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HistoryFemina Potens, which means “powerful woman” in Latin, conducts multidisciplinary programs that authentically explore the experiences of women, transgendered persons and others living outside the female-male gender binary. Our year-round visual arts exhibitions, media arts events, public arts projects, performances and educational programs explore a wide range of LGBT community issues relevant to the audiences we serve which include queers, women, feminists ,trans, genderqueer, genderfluid,intersex, kink community, sex worker community, sex positive community, partners and allies.Over the past 7 years, Femina Potens has presented almost 500 arts events. We operate the City’s highest profile LGBT visual arts program, stage monthly literature and media arts events, conduct the nation’s only LGBT public arts program and explore LGBT medical and mental health issues through the Healthy Community project. Our 2007-08 programs attracted audiences surpassing 7500 people. Femina Potens’ artistic programs and its organizational structure evolved from the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) arts movement that first appeared at Cell/Space around the Millennium. Central to this movement was the belief that artists could collectively plan, publicize and produce artistic programs by relying on community support systems rather than on public funding. Femina Potens’ early programs reflected the founders’ DIY philosophy: they included exhibitions in a rented single-car garage and performances in laundromats and bars. The artist collective that staged these events eventually became Femina Potens, which in 2003 rented an 800 sq. ft. storefront in the Mission. From 2003 though 2007, committed volunteers organized over 350 performing, visual, literary, media arts and educational programs at this intimate venue. In 2004, Femina Potens formed a Community Advisory Board and secured fiscal sponsorship from the Queer Cultural Center. Since we opened our doors in 2003, Femina Potens has consistently provided emerging Queer women and transgender artists access to an affordable venue where they can stage, screen, read and exhibit their work and has consistently offered programs that enable Queer women and transgender audiences to attend thoughtful artistic explorations of their lives and experiences. Femina Potens outgrew our Mission District venue in 06-07, when our audiences exceeded 4500. In mid-2007, we signed a five-year lease on a storefront at Sanchez and Market Streets and opened the only non-profit arts venue in the Castro. Our relocation significantly heightened our visibility, nearly doubled our audiences and attracted increased media coverage. In 2008, feature articles appeared in the SF Weekly, The Bay Guardian, Spread Magazine, The SF Chronicle and the SF Gate, which named Femina Potens "the most happening art space in San Francisco.” Femina Potens continued three longstanding programs at our new venue: Sizzle(described later); our gallery’s exhibition program that heightens the visibility of emerging queer women and transgender visual artists;Open Eyes, a monthly interactive media arts program, screens short films by local Queer media artists who then engage the audience in an interactive dialogue about their creative process. Since moving to the Castro, Femina Potens has initiated 4 new programs. Outside Looking In is, to our knowledge, the nation’s only site-specific LGBT public art program. Because our Market Street venue is visible to thousands of people who walk by it everyday, our public art projects have expanded our audience beyond the almost exclusively Queer women and transgender audiences our former Mission District venue served. In 2008, the Executive Director launched Femina Potens-Edge, a network that connects cutting-edge LGBT women visual artists with Queer and feminist audiences. This program has increased the visibility of Queer women artists by installing curated exhibitions in commercial businesses, galleries, health clinics, cultural centers, lesbian bars and social service agencies frequented by queer and feminist clienteles, who represent the audience most likely to purchase these artists’ work. In 2008, we also launched the Healthy Community Project, a series of 12 arts programs exploring LGBT health and wellness topics such as body image, living with HIV, breast cancer awareness, working in the sex industry, safer sex, std-prevention, censorship, global warming, suicide prevention, homophobic and transphobic violence and the fluid nature of gender, racial and sexual identity categories. In 2009, Femina Potens launched our new sold out event, Art of Restraint. Art of Restraint brings together kink community, performance artists, and world class rope artists to create new innovative performance and installation works for a night of decadence and erotic enlightenment. By the end of 2009, Femina Potens will open its new Edge Boutique presenting cutting edge media (indie film,queer porn,art work,prints, jewelry, cds, and books) that explores new ways of thinking about art, sex, and gender. This year was a big year for the gallery as the world took notice and Femina Potens founder Madison Young landed the cover of the Guardian for the "Queer Hot List - Queers We Adore" for the Pride Issue. Femina Potens also gained recognition from the San Francisco Chronicle as "The Most Happening Art Space in San Francisco" and "Best XXX XX in the Castro" in the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Best of the Bay Issue. In 2010, Femina Potens will strive to continue to be the best resource for the LGBTQKI community that we can be. We are in preparation to launch a new program, the Adult Industry Resource Center. The Adult Industry Resource Center will be the only online resource for women and men in the adult industry that provides essays, educational materials, mentors, doctor and therapist referrals, sexual risk assessment, and sex ed specifically geared toward the needs of persons working with in the adult industry. Femina Potens remains 100% volunteer run and community funded. If you are interested in supporting Femina Potens become a member, come to our events, purchase cutting edge art and books from a local women run non profit, or volunteer at an event. Sincerely, Madison Young |
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