We Cannot Look Away
An open call The Forum
Proposals from artists, curators and institutions, pitched live on stage during SF Art Week — to a room that includes the people who can fund them.
10–15 proposals selected · $3,500 each
Submit a proposalBradley McCallum, Shroud Mothers’ Voices, installation detail at TnT Art Lab, San Francisco.
What the coalition is putting on, where, and how to take part.
October 2026
Your guide to exhibitions, performances, screenings and cultural programs across the coalition — a printed 48-page book, and a digital edition with every venue mapped.
Oct 30 – Nov 1
Three days of video and moving-image art on a walkable loop from TnT Art Lab along Market Street to YBCA, in storefront windows, vacant spaces and outdoor projections.
Jan. 14, 2027, during SF Art Week
An open call for proposals from artists, curators and institutions, pitched live on stage during SF Art Week — to an audience that includes the people who can fund them.
A Greater Bay Area coalition of grassroots nonprofits and major institutions, each contributing its own strengths, audiences and communities.
TnT Art Lab, on the corner of Turk and Taylor, San Francisco.
Cultural organizations face growing polarization, disinformation and declining support for civic engagement — and pressure to avoid difficult conversations just when communities need artists most.
The work is not what is missing. The visibility, infrastructure and support to sustain it is.
Daapo Reo, How to Speak An American, 2025.
An annual signature project at each partner organization, plus artist-led work on urgent political and civic themes.
Helina Metaferia, video still from The Willing, 2023.
Convenings, public dialogue, critical writing and documentation across the coalition.
Festival at YBCA.
Shared communications and branding, and one regional calendar across the Greater Bay Area.
Three years, aligned with the 2026 midterm and 2028 presidential cycles. Deliberately lightweight: strong enough for collective impact, flexible enough to grow.
Read the initiative statementPartners are deliberately unalike. A neighbourhood nonprofit and a major museum bring different audiences, resources and room to manoeuvre: smaller organizations gain visibility and institutional support, larger institutions engage more dynamically with urgent cultural issues, and the field becomes more resilient for it. TnT Art Lab convenes partners and keeps momentum — it does not direct what anyone programs.
By the end of year three: 9–12 major socially engaged projects across the Bay Area, a stable coalition of 8–10 core organizations, partnerships with major institutions, and a model ready for further funders.
Meet the Moment coalition-building trip #2, with representatives from Minnesota Street Project, Timbri Hotel, Anderson Collection and TnT Art Lab.
Coalition partners include Root Division, Southern Exposure, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Museum of the African Diaspora, Oakland Museum of California, Catharine Clark Gallery, Jessica Silverman Gallery and Haines Gallery.
If your organization programs socially engaged work in the Bay Area, get in touch. The initiative statement sets out what joining involves.
Announcements, partner news and notes from the initiative.
· SFist
SFist on the launch of the coalition: the International Video Art Festival in Mid-Market and Yerba Buena, the Passport’s guide to programs across the Bay Area, and the Call for Big Ideas, with proposals due Nov. 16.
Meet the Moment, a new coalition of Bay Area artists, curators and cultural organizations, presents its first International Video Art Festival Oct. 30–Nov. 1, 4–9 p.m. nightly. More than 30 works by artists including Dread Scott, Claudia Rankine and Karen Finley will appear in storefronts and public spaces across Mid-Market and Yerba Buena. The coalition also opened its Call for Big Ideas, with proposals due Nov. 16, ahead of the Meet the Moment Forum on Jan. 14, 2027, during San Francisco Art Week.
Read the full announcement (PDF, 160 KB) Explore the festival
TnT Art Lab, which initiated Meet the Moment, runs exhibitions, residencies and public programs year-round at 67 Turk Street. Current schedule at tntartlab.com.
TnT Art Lab’s programming is its own, listed here as context rather than as Meet the Moment programming.
A new way for the arts sector to meet a time of civic urgency — not as isolated institutions, but as a collective cultural force.
We cannot look away.
Support Meet the Moment with a gift of any size, processed securely by Zeffy — one-time or monthly, funding the coalition directly through TnT Art Lab’s 501(c)(3).
Donate nowFunds are raised through TnT Art Lab’s 501(c)(3) and distributed to coalition partners, artist commissions and public programming.
Start a conversationFor Bay Area organizations that want to be part of a coordinated season.
How the coalition worksOccasional email about partners, programming and how to take part.
Join the mailing listMeet the Moment is one way to act. These groups are others — registering voters, defending rights, organizing neighbors and speaking up for the arts, in San Francisco and across California.
Check or update your registration, find where to vote, and sign up to work the polls.
Register to vote online in a few minutes — or pre-register at 16 or 17.
Nonpartisan guides to the ballot, candidate forums and explainers, since 1911.
Nonpartisan work on voting rights, fair districts and open government.
Civil rights and civil liberties in the courts and the legislature, with know-your-rights guides.
Organizing low-income and working-class Chinese immigrant San Franciscans, since 1972.
San Francisco families organizing to improve public schools, since 1975.
Tenant counseling, legal support and organizing, since 1979.
Lobbying for the arts, culture and creative industries on public policy and public funding.
Listed for reference. Each group is independent; Meet the Moment is not affiliated with any of them, and none of them are candidates, parties or campaigns.
The mark, the usage terms and the initiative statement in full. Free to download and use within the terms below.
| Preview | Name | Type | Size | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initiative statement — preview, PDF | 5.2 MB | Download initiative statement, PDF, 5.2 MB | ||
| Logo pack — preview, ZIP | ZIP | 73 KB | Download logo pack, ZIP, 73 KB |
The typeface is Special Elite.
For questions or additional assets, email conjunctionarts@gmail.com.
Contact, boilerplate and assets for press. Download the latest announcement below.
Beatrice Kilat, Press Contact
beatrice@goodideapr.com · (510) 560-4980
Bradley McCallum, Founding Director, TnT Art Lab
Press release, Oct. 8, 2026 — the festival and the Call for Big Ideas.
Download the release (PDF, 160 KB)Logo, usage terms and the full initiative statement.
Open the toolkitMeet the Moment is an initiative of artists, curators and cultural organizations presenting socially engaged art in response to the political and civic realities of our time. It operates as a flexible network across the Greater Bay Area, from grassroots nonprofits to major institutions, each contributing according to its strengths, audiences and communities. It is initiated and spearheaded by TnT Art Lab.
TnT Art Lab is the first dedicated space for social practice in the Bay Area: a 501(c)(3) nonprofit hub for research, production, education and public engagement, in the Tenderloin at Turk and Taylor. Founded in 1989 as Collaborative Urban Sculpture and renamed Conjunction Arts in 1998, it relocated to San Francisco in 2024. Its founding director is Bradley McCallum.
TnT Art Lab, 67 Turk Street, San Francisco, CA 94102
Open by appointment. Wheelchair accessible — get in touch about access needs.
“Bay Area Arts Groups Team Up to Support Artists, Spotlight Local Projects and Events”
SFist, Oct. 16, 2026
“He opened a Tenderloin art gallery. It took a year to get the lights on”
San Francisco Standard, Oct. 7, 2026
We invite you to join us as a founding supporter — not as isolated institutions, but as a collective cultural force.
The moment is here.
We meet it — together.
Occasional email — partners, programming, and the first place anything is announced.
