San José Museum of Art

10/14/2026

10/13/2026

💧Meet some of the featured speakers and presenters for “Reimagining Our Waterways: The Second Art + Climate Symposium!”

👉 Swipe to learn about artists, scientists, historians, activists, and civic leaders, who are designing collaborative projects to combat the effects of climate change.

🔗 Learn more at sjmusart.org/symposium

Martha Atienza is a Dutch-Filipino visual artist whose practice develops long-term methodologies for working with island and coastal communities, using video, installation, and the living archive as tools for observation, knowledge sharing, and collective inquiry. Rooted in Bantayan Island in the Philippines, her work examines the interconnected environmental, social, cultural, and political systems that shape how communities understand, adapt to, and care for rapidly changing environments.

devon bella (she/her) is an independent curator working at the intersection of contemporary art, environmental restoration, and public life. She is co-founder and project director of Art + Climate Action, a cultural strategist with the City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs Climate Art Program, and Director of Art & Cultural Affairs at Westside Water Resources. Previously, she served as director of KADIST, San Francisco, and co-curator of the Honolulu Biennial. Bella holds an MA in Exhibition & Museum Studies from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BA in Fine Art & Art History from Alfred University.

Kara Briggs is a Sauk-Suiattle poet, who has published two collections of poetry: “Rivers in My Veins” (2024), poems about the Skagits and Columbia Rivers, and “You and I,” and “Spilyáy” (2026). Briggs is an environmental advocate for water and key species like Pacific salmon, whose poetry explores cultural and social ties to rivers and other waters. Briggs worked for two decades as a journalist, including at “The Oregonian” in Portland, “The Spokesman-Review” in Spokane, Wash., and “ICT” (formerly Indian Country Today). She has also worked in higher education, public affairs, and tribal land and water stewardship.

Lisa D'Amour is a playwright and interdisciplinary artist living in New Orleans, Louisiana. She creates interd

10/09/2026

✍️ a “computer” once referenced a person—often a woman—who performed complex calculations by hand?

👩‍💻 The artist collective explores the legacies of women’s work in the technology industry. Their project “The Manual for Superfluous Motions” explores the mechanization of women’s labor, from early computation to the assembly of electronics.

🥼 Hear from , collective member of Superkilogirls, at SJSU Art Galleries Tuesday Night Lecture Series on Tue, Oct 13, 5–6pm, who will present works by artists who have anticipated, resisted, and reframed dominant narratives around technological development. Learn more at events.sjsu.edu.

💽 are currently exhibiting in “Motherboards,” which explores the foundational contributions of women’s work to the technology industry.

Images:
Superkilogirls (Camila Galaz, Ana Meisel, and Lua Vollaard), “The Manual for Superfluous Motions” (screenshot), 2026. Web project. Supported by Dutch Culture USA, a program of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United States, to mark America 250. Image courtesy of the artists.

Photo of Lua Vollard. Courtesy of the artist.

10/07/2026

🌍 What role can art play in addressing climate change?

💧You’re invited to Reimagining Our Waterways: The Second Art + Climate Symposium, a two-day symposium where you will hear from collaborating with , , , and , who are designing projects to combat the effects of climate change.

🗓️ Fri, Oct 16, 9:30am–5pm • Day 1: Case Studies
📍

🗓️ Sat, Oct 17, 10am–2pm • Day 2: Offsite Activations
📍Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful

🎟️ $20 ($15 for SJMA members); advance registration required (includes lunch for Day 1 and Museum admission)
🔗 Details and registration at sjmusart.org/symposium

💚 Featured presenters: Martha Atienza, devon bella, Kara Briggs, Lisa D'Amour, Amy Franceschini, Talia Heiman, Corina Herrera-Loera and Ixteyo Loera, Iris Hyseni, Brian Karl, QT Luong, Milli Macen-Moore, memajewski, Rajani Nair, astrida neimanis, Lauren Schell Dickens, Danielle Siembieda-Gribben, and Sunaura Taylor.

🌱 Presented by SJMA and San Jose Cultural Affairs.

🤝 The program is made possible with generous support from Teiger Foundation and additional support from City Of San José Climate Art Program.

🌊 Presented in conjunction with the exhibition “a small ocean swallowed” at SJMA, presenting six artists whose work embodies states of ecological entwinement, poetically, and experimentally reorienting human relationships with water.

10/06/2026

📍 “Evoking maps and other tools that facilitated the transformation of marshes around the San Francisco Bay Area and the swamps that once covered the Central Valley, Christine Howard Sandoval’s newest body of work invites us to critically examine the technologies that have shaped our relationships to the lands of California for the past two centuries.” — Juan Omar Rodriguez (Juan Omar), assistant curator at SJMA

✨ : Only a few more weeks to see “Christine Howard Sandoval: Move the Plot.” See the exhibition before it closes on Sunday, October 18.

🌿 Working with land-based materials such as adobe and medicinal plant dyes, alongside modular steel structures, Howard Sandoval (Chalon Nation) investigates how archives, architecture, and ecological systems register histories of Indigenous resistance and survival.
📷 Photos by SJMA/Frederick Liang.

10/02/2026

💀 Something sweet is making its way to SJMA!

💖 Our education staff is hard at work preparing sugar skulls (calaveras de azucar) along with other activities for Community Day: Día de Los Mu***os.

🕯️ Join us for Community Day: Día de Los Mu***os on Saturday, October 24, 11am–4pm. Free admission all day!

09/29/2026

09/29/2026

✨ ! ✨

🧶 SJMA recently acquired ’s “conjunto San José (loose ends)” (2025)! This is the first work by the artist in the Museum’s collection.

👀 You may have seen the work in garcia’s recent solo exhibition “loose ends” at SJMA, on view from October 17, 2025 through June 7, 2026.

🪢 In a materials-based practice that draws on handcraft traditions and a DIY punk ​sensibility, ektor garcia subtly challenges hierarchies ​of​​ ​gendered and racialized labor while undermining notions of static identity.

Image: ektor garcia, “conjunto San José (loose ends),” 2025. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Collection Committee and the Lipman Acquisition Fund. 2026.13.01. Photo by Glen Cheriton.

09/26/2026

🌼 Save the date for return of Community Day: Día de Los Mu***os at SJMA! 🌼

🕯️ Featuring a day of live entertainment, cultural demonstrations, and an eclectic mix of artmaking experiences. 💀

🗓️ Saturday, October 24
🕚 11am–4pm
📍 San José Museum of Art (SJMA)
🎟️ Free for everyone!
🖼️ Open galleries all day from 11am–6pm (check out the exhibitions!)
🔗Details and tickets sjmusart.org/COMMUNITY

09/15/2026

🌈 : An evening of drag and poetry brought people of all ages together!

💎 Thank you to all who came out for First Friday: at SJMA!

💖 Special thanks and shout out to drag artists brb, Raphael Slayher, King SlayHer, Jasper Redwood, and host Abbi K*ss!

📸 Swipe for a photo recap of the evening (photos by Jai Tanju).