Nexus 2026: Full Schedule

Join us for our annual San Francisco/ Bay Area Black Art week from Wednesday September 30th - Sunday October 4th, 2026!

4:00pm PDT

Free First Thursday

Thursday October 1, 2026 4:00pm - 8:00pm PDT

Museum of the African Diaspora @ 685 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA

MoAD's Galleries free for the public in conjunction with Downtown First Thursdays

Thursday October 1, 2026 4:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Museum of the African Diaspora

Exhibition, Event

5:00pm PDT

Making (Space): Celebrating 5 Years of Black (Space) Residency - Event

Friday October 2, 2026 5:00pm - 7:00pm PDT

Minnesota Street Project @ 1275 Minnesota St, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

Making (Space): Celebrating 5 Years of Black (Space) Residency - Event
2 October | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Co-Curators: Erica Deeman & Trina Michelle Robinson

"Making (Space)" celebrates the landmark 5th anniversary of Black (Space) Residency, a vital San Francisco Bay Area initiative founded as a direct counter-response to the displacement, gentrification, and systemic inequities facing Black creatives. Located within the Minnesota Street Project Studios, the residency was intentionally designed as a physical container dedicated to Black imagination, deep inquiry, community networking, and radical rest. Operating under the core values of abundance, safety, and self-determination, the program explicitly frees its fellows from the weight of performative outputs or commercial deliverables.

This retrospective exhibition showcases the expansive visual, material, and literary paths charted by residency alumni over the past five years."Making (Space)" honors the creative ecosystem built when artists are unconditionally given the room to simply exist, experiment, and thrive.

Artists

Erica Deeman

Artist, Curator

Erica Deeman (b. Nottingham, UK) is a visual artist whose work explores the intersections of race, gender, and the hybridity of Black identity. Deeman is concerned with the multiple ways selfhood manifests through queer, transnational and hybrid modes; and how we find a sense of belonging... Read More →

Trina Michelle Robinson

Artist, Curator

Trina Michelle Robinson is a San Francisco–based interdisciplinary artist whose work explores the relationship between memory, migration, and ancestral legacy. Using film, photography, printmaking, installation, and archival materials, Robinson creates emotionally resonant narratives... Read More →

BlackSpaceResidency Nexus 2026 Curators PhotoCredits AaronWojak HunterRidenour2 Page 1 jpg

Friday October 2, 2026 5:00pm - 7:00pm PDT
Minnesota Street Project 1275 Minnesota St, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

Exhibition, Event

Website Blackspaceresidency.com

5:00pm PDT

Selena Scott: Exhibition Opening Reception

Friday October 2, 2026 5:00pm - 8:00pm PDT

mighty mighty studio @ 480 23rd St, Oakland, CA 94612, USA

Selena Scott — Opening Reception: First Friday, October 2nd
5:00 - 8:00 PM

Selena Scott is a Cambridge based artist whose work boldly redefines the portrayal of Black identity across oil painting, film, textiles, and animation. Through her deeply researched and emotionally resonant oil portraits, she challenges historical narratives by centering Black people in their full humanity and complexity.

Grounded in historical archives and spoken stories, Scott's practice explores themes of trauma, racism, and colonialism, all rooted in her Caribbean heritage. Her work is both an act of reclamation and a powerful invitation to look again at whose stories get told and how.

We are honored to welcome Selena Scott to Mighty Mighty Studio for our First Friday opening on October 2nd in Oakland. Come experience her work in person and join us for an evening of art, community, and conversation.

Artists

Selena Scott

Artist

Selena Scott is a Cambridge based artist whose work boldly redefines the portrayal of Black identity across oil painting, film, textiles, and animation. Through her deeply researched and emotionally resonant oil portraits, she challenges historical narratives by centering Black people... Read More →

Screen Shot 2026 06 29 at 11.45.23 AM png

Friday October 2, 2026 5:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
mighty mighty studio

Exhibition, Event

Website https://www.mightymightystudio.com/

7:00pm PDT

Sheilby Macena and Simrah Farrukh: HOLD ME TENDER Opening Show

Friday October 2, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Sheilby Macena and Simrah Farrukh Studio @ 1018 4th Ave Apt 202, Oakland, CA, USA

Opening Show: Friday Oct 2nd @ 7PM - 9PM
Programming Kick Off: Sat-Sun Oct 3rd and 4th 12PM - 4PM

Photographers Sheilby Macena, Haitian-American, and Simrah Farrukh, American-Pakistani, bring forth a powerful exhibition born from the intersection of two distinct cultural landscapes.

Hold Me Tender invites viewers into a living world shaped by love, vulnerability, and softness. Extending beyond photography and film into interior space, literature, and archival references, the exhibition weaves together the visual and cultural language of the diaspora- creating an environment that feels inhabited, remembered, and shared.

Macena and Farrukh build an authentic vision grounded in personal and cultural truths- one that reflects how culture is lived, collected, and passed down. Through this lens, Hold Me Tender becomes both an immersive experience and a growing archive, challenging dominant narratives while centering the beauty and complexity of diverse voices.

Artists

Sheilby Macena

Photographer, Director & Producer, NRTVES Studio, LLC.

Sheilby Macena is a Haitian-American photographer and visual storyteller based in Oakland, California. Rooted in the traditions of her family's photo albums and the contrast between her upbringing in the United States and her family's life in Haiti, her practice explores themes of... Read More →

Simrah Farrukh

Artist, Photographer

Inspired by her South Asian background, Simrah’s work honors beauty, fashion, belonging, and soul with a deep reverence for womanhood and cultural expression. She is drawn to the quiet, grounded moments where resilience and tenderness meet, shaping images that honor both the individual... Read More →

Friday October 2, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Sheilby Macena and Simrah Farrukh Studio 1018 4th Ave Apt 202, Oakland, CA, USA

Exhibition, Event

Website https://www.figma.com/deck/cX4bq4Mgs7q2CqsCxCRjmb/-EXT--HMT-General-Deck---Info-Only?node-id=0-26&t=s9CZe3dg7SsGJmAW-1

1:30pm PDT

Caleb Dowdell's 'Our Prism of Dreams' - Performance

Saturday October 3, 2026 1:30pm - 1:50pm PDT

GearBox Gallery @ 770 W Grand Ave B, Oakland, CA 94612, USA

Future Vision: Caleb Dowdell performance with his piece Our Prism of Dreams, Saturday October 3rd, starting at 1:30 pm.

Please join us for this special performance at GearBox Gallery, just downstairs from Transmission Gallery at 770 West Grand Ave in Oakland. Start your experience with Caleb Dowdell at GearBox Gallery. Head directly upstairs afterward for William Rhodes' Artist's Talk at 2 pm with accompanying gospel choir performance by the Dr. George W. Davis Senior Center Choir, music conductor and leader Kenneth Little.

Caleb Dowdell's multi-dimensional piece Our Prism of Dreams will be on view during NEXUS in "Future Vision" with work by artist TaVee McAllister Lee at GearBox Gallery, open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 12-5pm.

Future Vision brings together the work of two artists looking at the forces that shape the world we imagine and the world we create.

Dowdell’s Our Prism of Dreams is a kinetic, five-sided plexiglass prism featuring hand-painted portraits of people whose lives have expanded what others might believe possible. Scientists, athletes, artists, activists, astronauts, and educators appear together as examples of persistence, courage, and possibility. Painted with layers of translucent acrylic, the portraits shift and overlap as the prism moves. The figures emerge and disappear as the viewer moves around the work, while the sculpture itself turns freely with the air. Dowdell extends this sense of movement through live musical performances, adding another layer of response to the people and stories represented.

In conjunction with work by TaVee McAllister Lee, "Future Vision" asks us to consider what we carry forward. Future Vision does not offer a single picture of what lies ahead. Instead, it places hope, aspiration, responsibility, and uncertainty alongside one another—and leaves room for us to consider what kind of future we are helping to make.

Artists

Caleb Dowdell

Artist

Caleb Dowdell is a painter, singer, actor, and instructor who produces traditional paintings, mural art, graphic designs, sculptures, and theatrical and song performances. In addition to creating original paintings and prints to show and sell at local art walks, online shops, and... Read More →

Caleb Dowell Prism of Our Dreams 2 jpeg

Saturday October 3, 2026 1:30pm - 1:50pm PDT
GearBox Gallery

Exhibition, Event