SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — A new storytelling project and media platform, Culture Keepers, has created a space for storytellers and artists to connect with their audiences while elevating voices and histories often overlooked in mainstream spaces. According to a Culture Keepers press release, the platform invites the public to engage with and better understand the practices, lives and communities of Bay Area creatives and nonprofits.
Culture Keepers brings together storytellers and communities from across the Bay Area, seeking to represent a wide range of local voices and artists. By investing more than $1 million in artists and organizations, the initiative says it hopes to educate, heal and unite communities across the region.
Jean Melesaine, a filmmaker partnered with the program, described its mission.
“We see storytelling as a collective practice of respect and reciprocity. Our goal is to ensure each story reflects the artist’s truth and the community it comes from. The storytellers in The Culture Keepers operate with deep reverence and humility, guided by the artists themselves, and with a profound sense of responsibility for how stories travel and who they touch.”
The organization said the program is built around four primary goals: investing deeply and long-term in artists and cultural spaces rooted in community; treating culture as civic infrastructure essential to advocacy, public health, democracy and belonging; and expanding the visibility of artists of all backgrounds whose work sustains communities while connecting them to new patrons.
Culture Keepers highlights 21 storytellers and artists representing different cultures, races, lineages and geographies, giving them space to nurture community, understanding and democracy.
“Being a Culture Keeper has given me the space to truly define myself as an artist and be intentional about where my work lives and who it serves,” said Timothy B., one of the featured storytellers.
“To me, keeping culture means preserving the fragments of history that shape our identity and carrying them forward in a way that feels alive and relevant. With the support of The Culture Keepers, I’ve been able to shift my focus from survival to service — centering community needs in my work. That shift has been powerful. I’ve gone from being an artist for hire to creating legacy-driven projects — work that’s meant to live beyond me and impact generations to come.”
Organizers say the project is also intended to shift resources and recognition back to communities and cultures that have historically been sidelined, despite helping shape the identity of the Bay Area for generations.
“The Culture Keepers began as a question I couldn’t shake: what would it look like if the Bay Area’s artists and culture bearers were resourced at the level of their genius and care?” said Vanessa Camarena-Arredondo, initiative lead at Tao Rising, who curated the project.
“This project is about treating cultural work as essential infrastructure for our communities. As an act of repair, the project is our way of correcting the imbalance between who benefits from Bay Area culture and who has borne the cost of creating it. This project is an invitation, asking each of us how we are tending to the culture of the Bay Area — a culture we all love.”
Ani Rivera, executive director of Galería de la Raza, said the organization’s participation reflects a long legacy of cultural advocacy.
“Galería de la Raza was born out of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. For more than five decades, we have stayed grounded in justice, human rights, dignity and belonging. Our work creates conversation across generations, where both traditional and new art forms speak to what our communities need and help us be active makers of positive change. The Culture Keepers is a celebration of cultural memory, where self-discovery and cultural affirmation honor the Latine experience as a vital part of the spirit of the Bay Area and of American identity, and we are thrilled to be a part of it.”
Nicole Lee, a director of participating organization Urban Peace Movement, said culture is central to organizing and youth leadership.
“Culture is fundamental to our organizing strategy. The Bay Area is known for its culture. Culture fortifies us, strengthens us, and gives our youth leaders a foundation to speak out for freedom and equity. This project is important because it supports those who give Oakland its soul. Oakland’s strength has always come from the ground up, and when youth activists and culture keepers lead, they build the kind of power that transforms communities from the inside out.”
Jacob Pritzker also emphasized the need for access and sustained support for cultural workers.
“The Bay Area’s global reputation rests on culture, but the people who create and sustain that culture are underfunded, displaced and often invisible to mainstream institutions. Meanwhile, donors and patrons who want to support community-rooted culture have few entry points and almost no shared in-person or online spaces for learning and collaboration. We’re holding up the artists and culture keepers whose work is essential to our collective well-being, so they have what they need to stay, create and thrive.”
Organizers say the initiative is not only about storytelling, but also about healing and creating opportunities for future generations to share their own experiences.
“Cultural work is an antidote for the isolation that exists in each of our communities,” Camarena-Arredondo said. “It is a balm that restores each of our communities and us, whether that be live music, an uplifting dance performance, gathering through rituals and festivals, a poem read in celebration or grief.”
The project is also encouraging public participation through attending performances and shows, buying art, supporting local cultural spaces and recognizing community storytellers. Organizers are also calling on donors to help sustain long-term investments in community-rooted cultural work.
“We want to see all cultural institutions, galleries, and movement organizations resourced at scale. This is the medicine we need now,” Camarena-Arredondo said.
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