Leila Weefur and Margaret Tedesco
Palms in the Fog, 2023
Paper
In 2021, collaborators Leila Weefur and Margaret Tedesco curated SFAI 150 | A Spirit of Disruption, an exhibition showcasing a selection of works and archival materials that celebrated the ethos and expansive ecosystem of the San Francisco Art Institute on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. The institution would permanently close its doors the following year.
Here, their collaborative efforts result in a zine reflecting on the palm tree–a non-native yet iconic feature of the California landscape.
Artist and independent curator Margaret Tedesco has presented and collaborated with artists, writers, choreographers, and filmmakers for over three decades. From 1999 to 2006, Tedesco was a curatorial member of the now historic New Langton Arts; and simultaneously co-founded Moving Target Series, a roaming venue in San Francisco. In 2007, she established 2nd Floor Projects, an artist-run exhibition and publishing imprint.
Leila Weefur (He/They/She) is an artist, writer, and curator based in Oakland, CA. Through film & installation, they examine the performative elements connected to systems of belonging, present in Black, queer, gender-variant life. An entanglement of beauty and horror evokes concepts of sensorial memory, architectural psychology, hyper surveillance, and the erotic. Weefur is a lecturer at Stanford University and a member of The Black Aesthetic.
Photos courtesy of Henrik Kam.
ARTIST BIOS
Leila Weefur is an artist, writer, and curator who lives and works in Oakland, CA. She received her MFA from Mills College. She tackles the complexities of phenomenological Blackness through video, installation, printmaking, and lecture-performances. Using materials and visual gestures to access the tactile memory, she explores the abject, the sensual and the nuances found in the social interactions and language with which our bodies have to negotiate space. She is a recipient of the Hung Liu award, the Murphy & Cadogan award, and the Walter & Elise Haas Creative Work Fund. Weefur has worked with local and national institutions including SFMOMA, Southern Exposure, The Wattis at CCA, and Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, New York. She is the Audio/Video, Editor In Chief at Art Practical and a member of The Black Aesthetic.
Margaret Tedesco is an artist and long-time independent curator. Tedesco works across performance, installation, photography, and video. She has presented and collaborated with visual and performance artists, writers, and filmmakers for more than twenty-five years. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally. For seven years Tedesco was a curatorial member of the now historic New Langton Arts in San Francisco. In 2007 she established [ 2nd floor projects ] an artist run exhibition and publishing space in San Francisco which received the Southern Exposure Alternative Exposure Award.
