Where We Find Ourselves, 2026
Where We Find Ourselves was created as an artistic activation in partnership with the California Migration Museum, as a way to think about the legacy of the former presence of the Christopher Columbus statue on a plinth at the base of Coit Tower. Created by Count Vittorio di Colbertaldo, sculptor and former bodyguard for Mussolini, the statue was installed in 1957 and was removed in 2020. More information on this history can be found in an article by Laura Ruberto and Joseph Sciorra here. This project is a temporary artistic investigation into the history of this space and was informed by community engagement and feedback including storytelling circles with local Italian American communities and North Beach residents, facilitated by the California Migration Museum with assistance from Museo Italo Americano, Italian Community Services, and La Scuola International. It is funded as a part of the San Francisco Art Commission’s Shaping Legacy Project, a multi-year commitment to critically examine the monuments and memorials in San Francisco’s Civic Art collection.
Where We Find Ourselves consists of a printed map-like illustration and a temporary sculptural installation, titled Cloud Monument. Both works will be featured at Coit tower in San Francisco on April 25th, 2026. I am highlighting our personal and collective movements through physical geographies and historical moments in order to explore “where we find ourselves” now. Both the map and the sculpture borrow cloud and wind motifs from historical modes of international navigation; elements that ignore geopolitical boundaries. Cloud Monument is made of stuffed canvas cloud forms that are dyed with cochineal, indigo, madder, and weld. The map illustration features key locations in the San Francisco Bay Area that held meaning for participants in our storytelling circles, and in the historical record of Italian migration to the area. Cloud imagery on the reverse side is framed by a list of wind names from around world and provides a link to the California Migration Museum’s audio tour that interprets the vistas from Telegraph Hill. What winds brought us here? Copies of the “map” will be distributed for free at Coit Tower in San Francisco on a first come first served basis. Archival prints of the illustration are available for purchase here.
Learn more here about the other works that accompany this project: City of Immigrants, an audio tour created by the California Migration Museum that interprets the vistas from Telegraph Hill, and The Italians of San Francisco, a 360° short film by Italian filmmaker Davide Fiore.
Archival prints of the image inside the map are available for purchase.