A Brief and Inconclusive History of Protests on San Francisco's Market Street
2019 · Risograph, saddle-stitched, 20 pages
Booklet documenting over a century of protests along the city's main civic artery, from labor rights and civil rights to disability rights and the end of wars.
From the introduction:
For over a century, San Franciscans have taken to the city's main artery, Market Street, to demand change. They called for improved working conditions, better roads, an end to wars, and basic civil rights. It is a history of action that reshaped the city.
In 2019, I was commissioned to produce a public artwork to be installed along the Market Street corridor. I wanted the city's legacy of activism to be visible in the project. At the time, I was an artist-in-residence at Real Time and Space in downtown Oakland. When I needed a break from other projects, I watched videos in my studio on the Bay Area Television Archive website, skimming for footage of past demonstrations. I also walked a few blocks to the Oakland Public Library's History Center to review microfiche from early local newspapers like The San Francisco Call or Alta California, looking for how those events were reported.
This booklet publishes my research into protests that took place on the Market Street corridor, accompanied by archival photos and quotes by activists like Dolores Huerta, Yuri Kochiyama, Lucy Parsons, and Bayard Rustin. These same quotes were later used when I commissioned artists to design Risograph prints for my Art on Market Street commission.
Slingshot called the booklet “a beautiful piece of Risograph work” in a 2023 review, describing its halftone crowd images—raised fists, handmade signs, police dragging protesters—paired with terse, museum-label-style captions that are offset by punchier quotes from protesters and revolutionaries.
This work has since informed Docomomo NoCal's Statement of Significance for Embarcadero Plaza, which cites the work in arguing for the Vaillancourt Fountain’s role as a starting point for marches and protests down Market Street.
Published by Current Edtions -> Sold Out
A Brief and Inconclusive History of Protests on San Francisco's Market Street
By Jessalyn Aaland
Design direction and research by Jessalyn Aaland
Graphic design by Paul Morgan
Risograph, saddle-stitched
5.25 × 8 inches, 20 pages
First edition, 2019, 250 copies
Second edition, first printing, 2023, 250 copies
Second edition, second printing, 2023, 400 copies
Published by Current Editions
Collections: Goldsmiths Library, University of London, London (GB); Ames Library, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL (US); The Claremont Colleges Library, Claremont, CA (US); Fenwick Library, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA (US); Louisiana State University Library, Baton Rouge, LA (US); Michigan State University Libraries, East Lansing, MI (US); Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR (US); Shields Library, University of California, Davis, CA (US); Wilson Library, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN (US)
A Brief and Inconclusive History of Protests on San Francisco's Market Street
2019 · Risograph, saddle-stitched, 20 pages
Booklet documenting over a century of protests along the city's main civic artery, from labor rights and civil rights to disability rights and the end of wars.
From the introduction:
For over a century, San Franciscans have taken to the city's main artery, Market Street, to demand change. They called for improved working conditions, better roads, an end to wars, and basic civil rights. It is a history of action that reshaped the city.
In 2019, I was commissioned to produce a public artwork to be installed along the Market Street corridor. I wanted the city's legacy of activism to be visible in the project. At the time, I was an artist-in-residence at Real Time and Space in downtown Oakland. When I needed a break from other projects, I watched videos in my studio on the Bay Area Television Archive website, skimming for footage of past demonstrations. I also walked a few blocks to the Oakland Public Library's History Center to review microfiche from early local newspapers like The San Francisco Call or Alta California, looking for how those events were reported.
This booklet publishes my research into protests that took place on the Market Street corridor, accompanied by archival photos and quotes by activists like Dolores Huerta, Yuri Kochiyama, Lucy Parsons, and Bayard Rustin. These same quotes were later used when I commissioned artists to design Risograph prints for my Art on Market Street commission.
Slingshot called the booklet “a beautiful piece of Risograph work” in a 2023 review, describing its halftone crowd images—raised fists, handmade signs, police dragging protesters—paired with terse, museum-label-style captions that are offset by punchier quotes from protesters and revolutionaries.
This work has since informed Docomomo NoCal's Statement of Significance for Embarcadero Plaza, which cites the work in arguing for the Vaillancourt Fountain’s role as a starting point for marches and protests down Market Street.
Published by Current Edtions -> Sold Out
A Brief and Inconclusive History of Protests on San Francisco's Market Street
By Jessalyn Aaland
Design direction and research by Jessalyn Aaland
Graphic design by Paul Morgan
Risograph, saddle-stitched
5.25 × 8 inches, 20 pages
First edition, 2019, 250 copies
Second edition, first printing, 2023, 250 copies
Second edition, second printing, 2023, 400 copies
Published by Current Editions
Collections: Goldsmiths Library, University of London, London (GB); Ames Library, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL (US); The Claremont Colleges Library, Claremont, CA (US); Fenwick Library, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA (US); Louisiana State University Library, Baton Rouge, LA (US); Michigan State University Libraries, East Lansing, MI (US); Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR (US); Shields Library, University of California, Davis, CA (US); Wilson Library, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN (US)
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