SPACES

Bay Area Intercultural Folklife/Other Visual/Craft/Material Arts

SPACES: Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments is a nonprofit organization founded in 1978 for the purposes of identifying, documenting, and advocating for the preservation of large-scale art environments.  Founding director Seymour Rosen conceived of SPACES as a national (and, later, an international) organization; currently operating out of offices in Northern California, it boasts an archives of approximately 25,000 photographs as well as numerous books, articles, audio and video tapes/DVDs, and artists documents.

In 2007, with support from ACTA’s Traditional Arts Development Program, archivist Brigitte Kueppers assessed and organized SPACES’ computer and physical archives, in order to facilitate their physical move from Los Angeles to Central California.   SPACES Director Jo Farb Hernandez also traveled to Los Angeles to evaluate the status of the reorganization and determine its readiness to travel.

In 2002, with support from ACTA’s Traditional Arts Development Program, SPACES contracted a consultant to review the physical and database archives, discuss priorities, and analyze options to develop a plan for long-term protection, conservation, and management of the SPACES archives.