A Conversation About Black Feminist Art Takes off at SFO

In an average year, over 50 million people pass through San Francisco International Airport. Most of them are rushing to catch a plane or greet their loved ones. But how many travelers take time to enjoy the art?

Art can be found all throughout SFO’s terminals, and even outside of the building. In Terminal 3, Alison Saar‘s stainless steel sculpture Flourish (2021), of a little Black girl sitting on a stack of suitcases, offers an homage to immigrant roots and diversity.

The artist’s goal was to have “a different conversation” about displacement and inclusion, says Ashara Ekundayo, founder of the arts organization Artist As First Responder. “The great thing about her piece,” says Ekundayo, “is that it sits before security.”

Because of that, anyone can come to airport and see it. This Friday at SFO, the public is invited to a roundtable discussion with Saar and fellow artists Adia Millett, Eve Sandler and the duo Taller SANAA (Shanna Strauss and Jessica Sabogal), moderated by Ekundayo.

The discussion, titled Reclaiming Histories: Black Feminisms and Visual Art: A Roundtable Discussion, is part of a line of events leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Combahee River Collective’s statement.

Written by a group of Black feminist artists and academics in April 1977, the statement is a manifesto on intersectional oppression and how liberation for Black women leads to liberation for all.

To guide the discussion, Ekundayo will pull from many of its concepts, as well as an analysis of the current state of art in San Francisco.

Two years ago, Ekundayo asked the SFO Museum and San Francisco Arts Commission how many women were in the permanent collection of the airport. “They gave me a list, it was very short,” she says.

That list grew even shorter when she asked how many of them were women of color. And shorter still when she asked how many were Black women.

There were only a few, recalls Ekundayo, they were Louisiana Bendolph, Mildred Howard and Alison Saar.

The collection now includes the works of 15 artists who are Black women and gender-expansive people of color, including Sydney Cain, Erica Deeman, yétúndé ọlágbajú, Trina Michelle Robinson and others.

In the spirit of the Combahee River Collective, addressing the history of institutions and the current state of arts in the community is Ekundayo’s larger goal.

Along with archivist Lisbet Tellefsen and artist and educator Dr. Courtney Desiree Morris, Ekundayo is curating a website that will chart events leading up to the Statement’s 50th anniversary in 2027. It’s called BlackW(hole).Art.

The listings include film screenings and group archiving events, like one held earlier this month, where Ekundayo worked with Eastside Arts Alliance’s Community Archival Resource Project. The collective invited people to contribute images to a community capsule. This was the first of four such events, and the next one will be on June 13 in partnership with the Bay Area Lesbian Archives.

All of these events, says Ekundayo, are representative of “a Black feminist praxis, beyond Black feminist thought.” She adds that the impact of the Combahee River Collective’s statement is in “the utility of Black women being free” and “facilitating the freedom of everyone else.”

As a capstone to this effort, in the spring of 2027, Ekundayo, Morris and company will partner with a number of institutions and community-based organizations to host a Black feminist symposium at UC Berkeley.

But for those who are either passing through the terminal, or have some time to stop by the airport tomorrow, they don’t have to wait to get a taste of what Ekundayo calls a “Black feminism visual offering.”

Reclaiming Histories: Black Feminisms and Visual Art: A Roundtable Discussion takes place April 24 at 11 a.m. at SFO Museum-Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum and Library (International Terminal Departures Level, San Francisco International Airport).