Purchase Preservation Supplies and Furniture

FAIN: PG-51066-10

Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (San Francisco, CA 94110-3908)
Gina Contreras (Project Director: May 2009 to December 2011)
Marsha Shaw (Project Director: December 2011 to March 2012)

Funding supports the purchase of archival supplies and storage furniture to preserve a collection of 3,400 posters and prints on paper spanning 31 years of printmaking from Mission Grafica and La Raza Graphics and make it accessible for research. The prints document the social, political, and community history of Latinos in San Francisco, the Bay Area, and California; they were created using a method of silkscreen employed by artists with little formal training or access to more expensive methods of creating art.

Begun in 2004 with funding from the SF Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the arts, MCCLA began the process of sorting 3,400 posters and prints created at Mission Grafica and La Raza. This collection represents over thirty years of documentation of life in the Mission, and of the events and organizations which shaped the Latino community of San Francisco and the Bay Area. We are seeking funds to purchase more equipment and supplies, so that we may complete this process, and begin making the collection available to researchers.