Culture for Community is a unique group of Yerba Buena district institutions who have joined together to open their doors for free on March 21 and September 19, 2019, and to feature programs focused on an issue of special importance to the Bay Area community.

Following a series of cultural shifts driven by and impacting womxn, including the Women’s Wave of elected representatives in Washington D.C., the #MeToo movement, and threats to transgender rights, Culture for Community's inaugural free day focuses on Culture for Womxn. All are invited to participate in a full day of special events, activities, and museum and gallery hopping in the Yerba Buena Neighborhood.

Sign language interpretation and CART real-time captioning can be requested for all programs with at least two weeks notice by emailing access@thecjm.org or by calling 415.655.7856 (relay calls welcome). FM assistive listening devices for sound enhancement are available for all talks and tours.

How do we depict “the self” if it is unknowable, inherently constructed, and ever changing? How does the concept of portraiture shift when categories are in crisis, and visibility itself is problematic? Jewish thought on performed and fluid identity can be interpreted in the book of Esther, and in the notion of G-d as “I am that I am,” ineffable and non-binary. These ideas uphold a Jewish understanding of the self as intrinsically mutable, unknowable, and yet self-determined, themes that animate Show Me as I Want to Be Seen.

Night at the Jewseum is made possible by the Koret Foundation and the Al and Rosanne Levitt Fund for Public Programs. Additional support is provided by SPARC.

Show Me as I Want to Be Seen is organized by The Contemporary Jewish Museum and curated by Natasha Matteson, Assistant Curator.

Support for this exhibition is generously provided by Suzanne and Elliott Felson; Maribelle and Stephen Leavitt; Gaia Fund; Lisa Stone Pritzker; John Pritzker; Dorothy R. Saxe; Susan and Michael Steinberg; Bavar Family Foundation; Nellie and Max Levchin; Phyllis Moldaw; Roselyne Chroman Swig; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Judith and Robert Aptekar; Dana Corvin and Harris Weinberg; Rosanne and Al Levitt; Joyce B. Linker; Douglas D. Mandell, Alexandra Moses; Eta and Sass Somekh; Ruth Stein; Toole Family Charitable Foundation; Marilyn and Murry Waldman; Kendra and Tom Kasten; Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery; Barbara Ravizza and John Osterweis; David Saxe; and Fred Levin and Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation, in memory of Ben and A. Jess Shenson.