Image Credit: UNBOUND Logo courtesy of George McCalman Co.; Cover of Suzanne Jackson’s publication What I Love: Paintings, Poetry, and a Drawing, 1972; © Suzanne Jackson, courtesy Ortuzar, New York.

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Building Universes – Two exhibitions, two ways of imagining the world anew.

Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love, illuminates the cosmos one artist can create through a singular, visionary practice, while UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe reveals what becomes possible when artists from across the African Diaspora build cosmologies together—ideas sparking ideas, worlds unfolding 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 curated by Suzanne Jackson, poets and dancers will offer original responses within the galleries, animating both exhibitions with live performance.

Travel freely between the two sites, follow the pathways of art and movement, and see what new universe begins to take shape for you.

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Unique performances with poets and dancers will take place at MoAD and SFMOMA, each repeated giving you the opportunity to see one performance at each institution. Catch the first performance at MoAD and then head over to SFMOMA for the second performance, or start at SFMOMA for their first performance and find your way to MoAD for the second performance.

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PERFORMANCE TIMES ARE THE SAME AT BOTH MUSEUMS:

First Performance: 5:15-6:15pm

Second Performance: 6:45-7:45pm

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The poetry performances will be curated by Nia Pearl and the dance performances will be curated by Raissa Simpson.

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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.

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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 50 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. In her professional work in the field, Simpson has extensive experience in grant writing and arts development for equity-centered organizations, having successfully secured funding ranging from San Francisco's Office of Economic and Workforce Development to foundation support for artist-centered programming.

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This program is presented in conjunction with the current exhibition Unbound: Art, Blackness & the Universe, on view October 1, 2025 - August 16, 2026, and with Downtown First Thursdays

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This program is presented in partnership with SFMOMA and Suzanne Jackson: What is Love, on view September 27, 2025 - March 1, 2026

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