What role can artistic engagement play in imagining the future of public life? How might artistic research support public policy or strategies of social change? Join UC Berkeley's Arts + Design Initiative, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to explore the complex interplay between art and public service in the Bay Area.

This gathering invites participants and Bay Area partners to map upcoming activities in 2017/2018 at the intersections of art, design, architecture, activism, and government. It marks the launch of SFMOMA’s new Initiative, Public Knowledge with the San Francisco Public Library, as well as future collaborations with YBCA; it anticipates UC-Berkeley’s platform on the theme of Public (Re)Assembly, and it celebrates the publication of Public Servants: Art and the Crisis of the Common Good, co-edited by Johanna Burton, Shannon Jackson, and Dominic Willsdon.

Speakers include: 
Deena Chalabi (moderator), Barbara and Stephan Vermut Associate Curator of Public Dialogue, SFMOMA 
Shannon Jackson, Associate Vice Chancellor of the Arts + Design and Cyrus and Michelle Hadidi Chair in the Humanities, UC Berkeley
Lucía Sanromán, Director of Visual Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Dominic Willsdon, Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Practice, SFMOMA