Robin Abad Ocubillo (he/him) is a dedicated public servant, internationally recognized as a civic innovator in public space design, planning, evaluation, and policy. Over the last decade, Robin led several of the San Francisco’s placemaking programs during a periods of intensive growth; expanding partnerships to cultural and community institutions, and overseeing the development of an award-winning Parklet Manual. For 3 years he directed of Shared Spaces SF, leveraging the public realm for economic recovery, social and psychological wellbeing. This built upon Places for People, SF’s local placemaking ordinance for which Robin was the City’s lead policy planner; and is the first ordinance in the country to streamline government processes and lower barriers for communities creating and stewarding public spaces in underutilized streets and lots. He extensively developed research methods for human-use evaluation of public spaces and is co-author of the Global Public Life Data Protocol.
Robin also works intensively in spheres of arts as social praxis. Aside from his role as curator with the San Francisco Urban Film Festival (SFUFF), Robin serves on the screening committee for the SF International LGBTQ Film Festival (Frameline), and is Curatorial Advisor to the International Filipino Cine Festival (FACINE).
With SFUFF as part of a residency at the YBCA, Robin curated “Echo Location: Cultural Geopolitics in the South of Market,” a multi-media exhibition featuring visual and digital arts, film, and theatre. Echo Location showed the power of Filipinx and LGBTQIA+ communities, overlapping both culturally and geographically over time. With SFMOMA, Robin edited an edition of Open Space Magazine titled ‘Participatory Urbanism;’ interrogating the promise and problematics of public space; asking who participates — and how — in constructing urban places. He was also Project Advisor to ‘Take Part,’ a collaboration between SFMOMA’s public programs, the SF Public Library, and the artists Bik Van Der Pol.
Luiz Barata (he, him) is a senior planner and urban designer at the Port of San Francisco. He studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and attended the Master of Urban Design program at UC Berkeley. Before joining the City of San Francisco, Luiz worked in national and international multidisciplinary architecture, planning, and urban design consulting firms. He has taught at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, the TU Delft Planning and Design for the Just City Program, and actively participates in studio design reviews at California College of the Arts and UC Berkeley Master of Urban Design Program. Luiz joined the design review team at the San Francisco Planning Department and managed the Islais Creek climate adaptation project. Most recently, he joined the Port of San Francisco, where he has been leading public engagement and advancing racial and social equity at the Waterfront Resilience Program.
Wriply Marie Bennet (She, her, hers, queen, goddess, sister, My Leigh) is a proud self-taught illustrator, activist/organizer born and raised in Ohio. Current visual communications specialist at TGIJP. Her art and organizing work started with the Trans Women of Color Collective and expanded in Ferguson when she and a few others were freedom riders traveling to stand with the family and community of Mike Brown, not only as a community organizer for the Trans Women Of Color Collective: but a Black Trans women who needed to stand with all black lives and remind the world that they Matter.
A founding member of BQIC (Black Queer Interseconal Columbus.) who, at the Stonewalls 2017 pride parade stood with 3 other black and queer and some trans folk, were brutalized and arrested while holding the community accountable for their complicit involvement in Black death in their city, including the over all cultural wide contenuious violence and erasure of Black, Brown, and Indiginous trans folk, and divisive actions against folks of color in the LGBTQIA community. They are remembered as the black pride 4.
Because of her work she’s been invited to speak at the NWSA (the National Women’s Studies Association.) and has been on panels for conferences like Sister Song, Black Girls Rule, The Movement for Black Lives and many others.
As an artist, Wriply’s work expresses the perseverance, power, strength, resilience, grace and beauty of Black trans women, femmes, G.N.C and queer folks. It also sheds light on the lack of national outcry surrounding an epidemic of Black trans death in America, a number that gets larger each year at the hands of state sanctioned violence and rampid toxic masculinity.
Wriply’s art has been used in numerous social justice flyers, fundraisers, online gallery shows,city wide campaigns, and also made its first film debut in (MAJOR!), a documentary at the 2015 San Francisco transgender film festival. This was followed by another documentary (the Whistle) and a docu-series that was featured on the Si-Fi network (Looking for Leia).
Her art continues to capture the imagination and endless potential of the BIPOC community, while encouraging our younger generation to dream
Kristal Çelik (she/her) is a Turkish-American civil engineer specializing in water and wastewater management working to integrate into her practice elements of ecological restoration and landscape design. She previously served as the Festival Manager for the SF Urban Film Fest and has been a Program Producer ever since. Kristal holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and has a background in clean energy engineering. She’s engaged in movement work around areas of mutual aid, housing justice, and environmental justice.
Lariza Dugan Cuadra (She, Her, Ella) in her role as Executive Director, Lariza is committed to continuing the Central American Resource Center — CARECEN SF’s 38+ years empowering and responding to the needs, rights and aspirations of Latinx, immigrant, and under-resourced families in the San Francisco Bay Area –building leadership to pursue self-determination and justice.
Prior to joining CARECEN SF in 2012, Lariza managed community building initiatives and public service grants for San Francisco’s Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development.
She serves as Board Treasurer of Alianza Americas – A transnational network of 50+ immigrant-led organizations across the United States and Latin America; She is a member elected Concilio Member of the San Francisco Latinx Parity and Equity Coalition, and 2023 How Women Lead, Latina Cohort Fellow.
Lariza has a Bachelor’s in Humanities with emphasis in Community Development & a Minor in La Raza Studies. She attended City College of San Francisco, San Francisco State University and New College of California.
Fay Darmawi (she/her) is a film festival producer, community development banker, and urban planner interested using all forms of storytelling and media to create lasting social change. She is the Founder and Executive Producer of the SF Urban Film Fest, a film festival focused on civic engagement inspired by great storytelling. Her 25-years of experience as a leader in affordable housing finance, including managing the low income housing tax credit platform for Silicon Valley Bank, as well as 5-years of screenwriting training, informs her media-related work. She is a screenwriter alumni of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts community fellow and was recently awarded a National Arts Strategy Creative Community Fellowship. Fay served on the Boards of Directors of Chinatown Community Development Corporation and the American Institute of Architects San Francisco Chapter, and is currently on the Board of Livable City organizing ten Sunday Streets open streets events per year in San Francisco. Fay is the recipient of the Community Alliance Award from the American Institute of Architects San Francisco Chapter, and the Special Recognition Award for Accomplished Planner from the American Planning Association, California Northern Chapter. Fay’s formal urbanist training is from M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania but her love of cities is from her childhood growing-up in the epicenter of Jakarta, Indonesia.
Jacquelynn (Jacque) Evans (She, Her, They) is a health worker, doula, and community advocate. A native of San Francisco, she is currently a Peer Parent Mentor in the Child Welfare Department at Homeless Prenatal Program where she works with women and pregnant people experiencing housing insecurity. She was previously a Shelter Client Advocate for the Eviction Defense Collaborative and a Community Outreach Specialist for The Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco. She brings a wealth of knowledge and lived experience with the foster care and shelter systems in San Francisco to her work helping others navigate transforming their lives and advocating for better social services and housing policies in the city.
Kazani Finao (he/him/his) My name is Kazani Kalani Finao. I am Samoan first and a man with trans experiences. I am an advocate and community organizer, and multidisciplinary artist, who is protective of our people’s narrative, a sun, a big brother, a fairy goddad and a warrior. I was born and raised in San Francisco(Frisco). I believe in individual freedom and for people to define their own self determination. Kazani is the founder of – Shine Wit Purpose & a Student at CCSF major in Critical Pacific Islands & Oceania Studies. Shine Wit Purpose(SWP) centers pasifika black and brown indigenous trans masc folks in their storytelling artivism, self empowerment, and self determination.
Stephen Gong is the Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), a public media and cultural non-profit organization located in San Francisco. Stephen has been associated with CAAM since its founding in 1980, and has served as Executive Director since 2006. His previous positions in arts administration include: Deputy Director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley, Program Officer in the Media Arts program at the National Endowment for the Arts, and Associate Director of the National Center for Film and Video Preservation at the American Film Institute.
He has been a lecturer in the Asian American Studies program at UC Berkeley, where he developed and taught a course on the history of Asian American media. In addition to writing about film history, Gong has provided critical commentary on several DVD projects including the Treasures From American Archives, Vol 1 & 5 (National Film Preservation Foundation), Chan is Missing (dir. Wayne Wang), and is the featured historian in the documentary Hollywood Chinese (Dir. Arthur Dong).
Kaiya Gordon (they/them) is a writer and poet from the San Francisco Peninsula. They hold an MFA in poetry from The Ohio State University, with an emphasis in interdisciplinary art, and are a current doctoral student at The University of California, Santa Cruz, where they study trans archival poetics. Kaiya’s work has been published by The Guardian US, Empty Mirror, Triangle House Press, Split Lip Mag, poets.org, and others. Their favorite karaoke song is “Basket Case,” by Green Day.
Sasha Hauswald (she/her) is the Chief Housing Policy Officer for City of Oakland. She formerly served under the Secretary of Business, Consumer Services and Housing, as a Gubernatorial appointee, overseeing loan and grant programs funding affordable housing rehabilitation and construction throughout California. Earlier in her career, she worked for the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development on housing legislation and program design, and there, she initially became involved with efforts to invest in rehabilitating aging SRO’s.
Sasha comes to the documentary with a personal connection to SROs as well as a passion for housing policy. Sasha’s grandmother and great-grandmother both lived in San Francisco SROs to escape homelessness and poverty in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s. Her family history was her inspiration for starting the project that became Home is a Hotel.
Jill Hill (She/Her) is a filmmaker, video artist, and agent of chaos from Palm Springs, California. Her greatest gifts were born in the Bay Area: Producer for Rent Check Series (Starring Mike Evans Jr.), writer-director-editor for 10 minute epic, KILL YOUR LANDLORD (2024), and editor for the internet’s worst television show, Rock Band Land’s UGLY BABY. She also creates visual horrors for drag artist OBSIDIENNE OBSURD as part of her gender defiance. Apart from her creative endeavors she is also a corporate representative of URSUS industries; a venture capital startup dedicated to monetizing the human experience. Jill is also a proud member of SURGE MEDIA COLLECTIVE in San Francisco.
Cynthia Huie is co-founder of On Waverly, a new AAPI-centered book and gift shop, skillfully balances entrepreneurship with advocacy as the President of the San Francisco Small Business Commission. Experienced in retail, healthcare, and SF politics, she actively participates in global missions and local civic projects. As the former President of the Board of Directors at RAMS, Inc., a non-profit mental health agency, she spearheaded initiatives like the Unity Road Trip. Cynthia, a past President of the Clement Street Merchants Association, introduced District 1’s first parklet, a vibrant Farmers Market, and mural by artist Jason Jagel. A co-founder of Art Walk SF, she’s dedicated to infusing joy and creativity into communities. Currently pursuing a Masters in Transformative Leadership at CIIS, she is deeply rooted in the Bay Area, resides in West Portal with her family.
Margaret Ikeda (she/her) is an associate professor of Architecture at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, California. She is the Integrated Studio Coordinator and has developed the Buoyant Ecologies Studio curriculum which, since 2015, has received six national AIA COTE Top Ten Student Awards for sustainability. Margaret is also a co-founder and co-director of the CCA Architectural Ecologies Lab that serves as a platform for collaborative research between designers, scientists, and manufacturers. The lab merges spatial practice with innovative techniques of material production and ecological research. The most recent project called the Float Lab, is currently moored in the Port of Oakland and designed to test a new type of resilient floating breakwater. In conjunction with the launch of the Float Lab, the Port awarded her with a Community Investment Grant to create an educational book called A Guide to Field Identification, Marine Animals Coloring Book of the San Francisco Bay.
Rev. Deborah Lee (she/her) serves as the Executive Director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity in California an organization dedicated to the full participation and dignity of immigrants and people impacted by incarceration. For over 30 years she has worked in popular education, organizing, and advocacy advancing the prophetic role of faith communities in today’s social movements.
Joanne Lee (she/her) comes with over three decades of working at the intersection of culture, economic development and social change. She has held leadership positions in arts administration, nonprofit management, and community building at a range of institutions that support equity in the cultural arts and communities of color. Prior to coming to Edge on the Square, she was the Deputy Director of Programs at the San Francisco Arts Commission where she spearheaded public initiatives that addressed the City’s priorities and needs in cultural programs. Previously, Joanne was at Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) as their Deputy Director and Director of Housing Development, marking over 14 years of work for Chinatown.
Hoi Leung (she/her) is a Hong Kong-born, San Francisco-based, curator with a deep sensitivity to neighborhood dynamics in her curatorial approach. As Chinese Culture Center’s Curator and Deputy Director, she oversees the center’s exhibitions, site-specific interventions, and multi-year community-based projects. Leung upholds a spirit to simultaneously develop diverse contemporary artists while uplifting neighborhoods and everyday people.
Notable curatorial projects include: Homing (2019)—a set of sound installations responding to Chinatown’s urban development history; WOMEN我們: From Her to Here (2021) exhibition on queer Asian diasporic sensibilities; and Interior Garden (2022), a major solo exhibition in ceramic by artist Cathy Lu that explores the dream and dystopian states of Asian America. Leung also launched 41 Ross’s inaugural Artist in Residence project in 2022.
Honey Mahogany (She/they) is a performer, small business owner, and activist who grew up in San Francisco. Honey received her Masters in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley, and her work as an advocate, culture creator, and change maker has earned her recognition from the City of San Francisco; the State of California; Sainthood from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence; and awards from numerous organizations including the Imperial Court of San Francisco; Harvey Milk Democratic Club; Trans Day of Visibility; and the Women’s Foundation of California. Honey is a co-founder and served as the inaugural Executive Director of San Francisco’s Transgender District, she is a founding queen of Drag Story Hour, a co-owner of the Stud Bar, a singer with nu-metal group Commando, and recently ran a historic campaign for District 6 Supervisor in San Francisco. Currently, Honey is working as the District Director for Assemblymember Matt Haney and is Chair-Emerita of the San Francisco Democratic Party.
Lalu (Esra) Ozban (they/them/theirs) creates, curates, exhibits and archives still/moving images. They are currently a Ph.D. candidate in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Lalu’s artistic, curational, and scholarly work focuses on trans, queer, and feminist theories, histories, pedagogies, and praxis. They have curated for Pembe Hayat KuirFest, bi’bak Berlin, Aphrodite Festival Athens, Cambridge University, and AWID Feminist Forum, among others. Born and raised in Ankara, Turkey, Lalu holds a BA in Economics from Bogazici University and an MA in Film and Screen Studies from Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Emily Packer (she/they) is an experimental filmmaker and editor with an interest in geography and hybrid formats. Their directorial work has been screened at film festivals and theaters across the country, including at Anthology Film Archives, BlackStar, DOCNYC, and others. Emily’s short film By Way of Canarsie, which she co-directed with Lesley Steele, is streaming on the Criterion Channel and as a part of POV Shorts. Her archival film Too Long Here, which Criterioncast called “a fascinating, important work” about the inauguration of an international park, has been used as an advocacy tool for its preservation. As an editor, Emily’s work has been featured in the New Yorker, PBS, and on Vimeo Staffpicks. Her feature film editorial experience spans indie narrative, experimental nonfiction, historical arthouse fiction, and personal essay film. They were a fellow in the 2018 Collaborative Studio at UnionDocs in Brooklyn, and are a proud alumna of the anomalous Hampshire College where she recently taught a course on digital editing. Emily collects voicemails for future use — consider yourself notified.
Chloe Sherman (She / her) earned her BFA in Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Her interest and pursuit of documentary photography were deeply influenced by her fine arts training.
After receiving a merit scholarship for her photographic work, she had the honor of being selected as a participant of the Eddie Adams Barnstorm Workshop in upstate New York. Here she worked alongside National Geographic and AP photographers, and this experience became a launchpad for her career. She later worked as a photo editor for Mother Jones magazine and as a freelance photographer in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Her work has been exhibited at Schlomer Haus Gallery (San Francisco), F³ Freiraum für Fotografie (Berlin), Kunsthalle Nürnberg (Nuremberg), also internationally with Sotheby’s ArtLink Auction. She has been published in the books Nothing But the Girl, RESEARCH: Angry Women in Rock, and Out in America and featured in magazines including Rolling Stone, Interview, and The Advocate.
Meg Shutzer (they/them) is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and investigative reporter whose work seeks to interrogate power structures and elevate stories from communities who have been historically underrepresented. Meg’s documentaries have screened on five continents and won numerous awards at film festivals. Their most recent investigation into a juvenile detention center in Louisiana was published on the front page of The New York Times and was a Finalist for the Livingston and Dart Awards. A companion film, 8 Days at Ware, was released on PBS in April 2023.
Meg has a BA from Harvard and a Master’s in Journalism from UC Berkeley. They are a co-founder of Family Pictures, a production company comprised of journalists and filmmakers who combine original reporting and cinematic vision to craft non-fiction stories.
When they aren’t chasing down a story, you can find Meg teaching journalism classes at San Quentin State Prison or cycling classes at 17 Reasons Athletic Club in the Mission.
Per Sia (government name is Socrates Parra) (She/her) With a pedigree from weekly performances at the late, iconic Esta Noche, her trajectory has gone on to include art curation, stand-up, television, and maybe a quinceañera or two, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and México. Currently she is a regular performer in the nationally acclaimed “Drag Story Hour” as well as an educator in residence at an after school arts program in the San Francisco Unified School District profiled on KQED Arts, National Public Radio and CNN.
Shauna Siggelkow (She/Her) is a documentarian, researcher, and digital strategist with over ten years of experience working at the intersection of new media production and advocacy. In her current role as the Director of Digital Storytelling at the award-winning non-profit, Define American, Shauna utilizes data and research tools to inform digital strategies to shift the narrative on immigration. The goal of this work is to develop infrastructure for the non-profit field to better combat xenophobia on social media. Her research has been featured on MSNBC, Politico, dozens of podcasts, and has been referenced on the floors of the United States Congress. Prior to this role, Shauna worked as a producer in television and digital media, with projects that have been featured on MTV, CNN, Nickelodeon, and PBS, including Emmy and Shorty award nominated work. She has also produced dozens of short films and articles that have been published with prominent brands such as The Washington Post and The LA Times.
Malia Spanyol (She/her) came to San Francisco in the late 80’s and spent their young adult life thriving in the queer, punk and artist scenes of The City. Malia currently owns several small business around town. Her most recent venture is Mother, San Francisco’s only operating queer women’s bar.
Lewis Stringer (He/him) is the Associate Director of Natural Resources at the Presidio Trust, with over 25 years of experience in ecological restoration, research, and education in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has managed restoration projects at sites like Crissy Field and now focuses on ecological innovation in the design, research, and maintenance of the Presidio’s cultural landscapes. Lew completed his graduate studies in Land Rehabilitation at Montana State University in 2003, specializing in plant ecology in disturbed landscapes. Before joining the Presidio Trust, he worked as an ecologist for the National Park Service at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Glacier National Park, focusing on restoring remediated Army landfills.
Ron R. Sundstrom (He/Him) is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. He is also a member of USF’s African American Studies program, teaches for the university’s Honors College, and is the Humanities Advisor for the SF Urban Film Festival. His research focuses on the philosophy of race and the related areas of racism, xenophobia, and mixed-race identity; political philosophy and urban policy; and figures in African American political theory, especially Frederick Douglass. He published several essays and two books in these areas, The Browning of America and The Evasion of Social Justice (SUNY 2008) and Just Shelter: Integration, Gentrification, and Race and Reconstruction (Oxford 2023).
Kevin Duncan Wong (He/Him) HOME IS A HOTEL is Kevin’s feature debut and was supported by Sundance, SFFilm, and The Center for Asian American Media among others and premiered at the 2023 SF International Film Festival. The short film which inspired HOME IS A HOTEL won several awards including the Loni Ding award for social justice documentary and Best Short Documentary at Cinequest. His other Non-Fiction films have played at festivals across the country including Bigy Sky, SFFilm and Cinequest, and been featured on PBS and in The Washington Post. His narrative films include “Forgetting,” an adaptation of an episode of WNYC’s Radiolab, and “Jus Soli” a Sci-Fi Thriller about immigration and data privacy starring Lynn Chen.
He is a former Sundance Humanities Sustainability Fellow, SFFilm Filmhouse resident, and BAVC Media Maker fellow.
Malcolm Yeung (he/him) is the Executive Director of Chinatown Community Development Center (Chinatown CDC). Chinatown CDC is a comprehensive community development organization with a mission to build community. Chinatown CDC builds community through bricks and mortar strategies (developing, acquiring and operating over 3,500 units of affordable housing) and people strategies (tenant organizing, community planning and advocacy, youth leadership development, and residents services). Malcolm graduated from Duke University in 1994 (B.S. Chemistry), University of Colorado at Boulder in 1997 (M.A. History), and Berkeley Law (J.D.) in 2001. Malcolm first practiced in venture finance and in I.P. litigation at Perkins Coie LLP and then O’Melveny and Meyers LLP before joining the Asian Law Caucus in 2003. In 2009, Malcolm joined Chinatown CDC where he has been ever since, except for a brief sabbatical serving as Senior Housing Advisor to San Francisco’s First Asian American Mayor, the Honorable Edwin M. Lee. In 2019, Mayor London Breed appointed Malcolm to the San Francisco Airport Commission. Malcolm has previously served as Co-Chair of the California Coalition on Civil Rights and President of the Asian American Bar Association of the Greater Bay Area. He currently serves on the Boards of National CAPACD, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and the API Council of San Francisco.
