Projecting SOMA: Youth and Elders’ VOICES

Projecting SOMA: Youth and Elders’ VOICES presents large-scale, text-based video projections depicting messages, stories, and words of wisdom from the Filipino Community. They were developed under the direction of artist Eliza Barrios through YBCA In Community partnerships in SOMA. Filipino-American veterans from Veteran’s Equity Center and youth from South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN) worked together over the past year exchanging stories and creating a video born from their shared experience.

Despite generational differences between the youth and the elders, what they shared in common was their Filipino heritage, the neighborhood, and the immigrant experience. With this project they have collaborated to tell the story about the SOMA that they know — a strong community, with strong family values, a place where children grow up, and where many elders have spent nearly their entire lives. It is a community with a distinct history, a solid cultural tradition, and a proud legacy. Projecting SOMA not only tells the stories of the people who live there, it reflects the voices of both the past and the future, utilizing the very technology that is threatening to displace them.

special thank you to: Alejandro Acosta, Kia Simon, Rebeka Rodriguez, Raquel Gutierrez, Thea Q. Tagle

photo credits: Francis Tady and LissaIvy Tiegel