Building Universes

Building Universes: two exhibitions and two ways of imagining the world anew.

Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love at SFMOMA illuminates the cosmos that one artist can create through a singular visionary practice, while UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) reveals what becomes possible when artists from across the African Diaspora build cosmologies together where ideas spark ideas and worlds unfold in conversation.

MoAD and SFMOMA invite you to spend an unforgettable evening in downtown San Francisco, moving between our neighboring museums and the artistic worlds they hold. Inspired in part by the spirit of the 1972 Black Art Expo that Suzanne Jackson curated, poets and dancers will offer original responses to both exhibitions within the galleries, animating these presentations with live performances.

Travel between the two sites, follow the pathways of art and movement, and see how a new universe begins to take shape for you. Performances by poets and dancers will take place at MoAD and SFMOMA; each will repeat so attendees can see one performance at each institution.

PERFORMANCE TIMES ARE THE SAME AT BOTH MUSEUMS:
First Performance: 5:15–6:15 p.m.
Second Performance: 6:45‐7:45 p.m.

About the Performers

Judy Juanita‘s latest book of poetry, Gawdzilla, calls out the evils of imperialism, including nuclear aggression, equating it with the destructive movie monster Godzilla. Her poetry collection, Manhattan my ass, you’re in Oakland, won the American Book Award 2021 from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her work has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes three times. Her semi-autobiographical novel, Virgin Soul, is about a young woman who joins the Black Panther Party in the 60s [Viking, 2013]. Her essay collection, DeFacto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland [EquiDistance, 2016], intersectionally examines race, gender, politics, and spirituality. Winner of the Tartt Fiction Prize at the University of West Alabama, her short story collection, The High Price of Freeways, was published by Livingston Press [UWA] in 2022. Her 2025 book of abortion-themed essays, fiction, and poems is titled Abortion (or Woman as Threefold Murderess).

Wendy M. Thompson is a poet, writer, and scholar who hails from Oakland, California. Her debut poetry collection, Black California Gold (Bucknell University Press, 2025), maps out life in the Bay Area during the 1980s and 1990s and was a finalist for the Martin Cruz Smith Award: Emerging Diverse Voices (2025 Golden Poppy Awards). Eternally interested in the Black Bay Area, her forthcoming book, Chasing the Sun: Staging Black Life, Belonging, and Displacement in California’s Bay Area, looks at the cultural and performative worlds of Black migrants and their descendants from the Second World War to the afterlife of the Second Great Migration. She most recently contributed an essay to Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California which accompanied the exhibition of the same name at BAMPFA. She teaches at San José State University where she is an associate professor of African American studies.

Natalya Janay Shoaf is a visionary storyteller who believes that movement is a catalyst for self-discovery. Natalya is the artistic director of Ja’LUUM, a pre-professional company for dancers aspiring towards professional careers in the arts. A 2025 CA$H Grant recipient, Natalya produced four shows in five months dedicated to the process of artistic evolution. Her choreographic works have been commissioned by Oakland Ballet Company, Alonzo King LINES Summer Intensive, Black Choreographers Festival, and Los Angeles Dance Festival, among many more. She is inspired by truth and the process of uncovering it.

William Brewton Fowler Jr is a Christian freelance dancer and emerging choreographer. He recently created the solo work, Gentleness in His hands, during his 2024/2025 fellowship with Zaccho Dance Theatre’s Black Futures residency. William has received an Isadora Duncan award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance in the Individual category (2023–24) for Zaccho Dance Theatre’s THE PEOPLE’S PALACE.

About the Curators

Nia Pearl is an award-winning poet, writer, and environmental justice advocate working at the intersection of art, activism, and public engagement. She is an established host and event curator passionate about creating participatory spaces for creative expression and literary dialogue. Nia’s writing has been published in Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism; The Town: An Anthology of Oakland Poets Painting the Streets: Oakland Uprising in the Time of Rebellion; and terra:soul: echoes from the future ancestors. She is one of the recipients of the 2023 Nomadic Press/San Francisco Foundation Literary Awards.

Raissa Simpson is a post-disciplinary artist, choreographer, and scholar who moves between embodied practice and academic inquiry to interrogate complex racial and cultural identities through movement. As artistic director and founder of San Francisco’s award-winning PUSH Dance Company, she has presented work at over fifty venues nationwide, including Joyce SoHo, Aspen Fringe Festival, and Ferst Center for the Arts. In 2023, she opened the Sanctuary, a dance space in downtown San Francisco dedicated to centering the lived experiences of BIPOC and global majority artists. She serves as a faculty member of Stanford University’s Department of Theater and Performance Studies, teaching contemporary modern dance.

This program is presented in collaboration with SFMOMA’s Community Partner, the Bay Area Host Committee.