infinite city: a san francisco atlas

one day, i went to a local independent bookstore, called the green arcade on market street - across from my favorite independent art supply store, Flax. at the cash register was a map, entitled Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas. Not only was the name intriguing, but the maps were free for the taking!

i opened it up and it was entitled Monarchs and Queens
with illustrations of butterflies and a drag queen in full glory. The map itself locates where butterflies are found in san francisco and how the city is a historically been a sanctuary for gay/queer culture, by locating queer public spaces throughout the city. the combination itself is whimsical, providing us with juxtapositions and cross connections about san francisco.

San Francisco artist Rebecca Solnit created this project, in partnership with SFMOMA. The museum is currently celebrating it's 75th anniversary this year and is producing a map with a different theme each month, which is supplemented with related programs and films. Solnit collaborates with local artists, writers and cartographers to create these maps with a story, exploring local identity, culture and politics.

a run down about the maps
july: monarchs and queens (where butterflies are found/queer spaces)
august: right wing of the dove (the bay area as a military center)
september: cinema city (eadweard muybridge and alfred hitchcock's connection to SF)
october: all identity is local (when identity changes from neighborhood to neighborhood)
november: poison palate (the bay area's food producers with toxic polluters)
december: lost world (san francisco's south of market before it was SOMA)

i really love this project so much i plan to collect all 6 maps!
plus, the project will also be released as a book, (same title) published by the UC Press, which will contain a total of 22 maps, art, essays and stories. found here

if you are in the bay area, you can drop by green apple books and pick up the maps there!

the marvelous museum

the marvelous museum is an exhibit of odds and ends, the forgotten, the lost and found objects from the Oakland Museum of California. Think of taxidermy, wooden crates, the spines of old books, a baby elephant, an invalid's wooden wheelchair, and more.

artist Mark Dion finds these objects from the museum's archives, recalling a cabinet of curiosities and the predecessors of the Oakland Museum of California, including a natural history museum, an art gallery and the oakland public museum.

since Dion is an installation artist, he also recalls the past and present by recreating curator's offices from three different time periods.


rubber stamps at a re-created curator's desk from the 1970s.


a modern day curator's office, re-created.


curator's desk from the turn of the 19th century.

for more information, go to the exhibit's page here.

there's also a book that accompanies this exhibition, which i really want to see! find it here on amazon, it's published by chronicle books.

photos taken by my awesome sister, anna.