with 6 x ordinary dance companies that we have assembled dancers from all of these companies to present a united work in celebration of the bicentennial. >> dancers from over 20 countries are staunch cultures are participating. >> one of the things that is inspiring is how many are being invited back to their home countries as cultural ambassadors from the u.s.. we are teaching them in committees so that the next generation here in america and back to india or bali or whatever will be able to get enriched by these very beautiful art forms. >> thank you for watching "culture wire."

and you can find more information >> i am the director of visual arts programming at intersection for the arts. intersection for the arts is based in san francisco and has always been an organization that looks at larger social political issues through the lens of

practice, and we are here today at our exhibition of "chico and chang." the original inspiration was drawn from a restaurant chain in new york city. half of their menu is -- what struck me was the graphic pictures and a man in a hat on a rig truck carrying take that time is containers and in the black sea to representation of a mexican guy wearing a sombrero and caring a somali horn. it struck me that these two large, very subversive complex cultures could be boiled down to such simple representations. chico and chang primarily looks at four topic areas. one of the man was is whose stories are being told and how.

one of the artisans in the show has created an amazing body of work working with young adults calling themselves the dreamers. another piece of the exhibition talks about whose stories of exhibition are actually being told. one artist created a magnificent sculpture that sits right in the center of the exhibition. >> these pieces are the physical manifestation of a narrative of a child in memory. an important family friend give us a dining table, very important, and we are excited about it. my little brother and i were 11, 14. we were realizing that they were kind of hand prints everywhere on the bottom where no one would really see, and it became this kind of a weakening of what child labor is. it was almost like an exercise

to show a stranger that feeling we had at that moment. >> the second thing the exhibition covers is how the allocation is defined, a great example on the theme, sculpture called mexicali culture. another bay area artist who has done residencies in china and also to what, mexico. where immigrant communities really helped define how businesses look of a business' sign age and interior decoration, her sculptural piece kind of mismatches the two communities together, creating this wonderful, fantastical future look at what the present is today. first topic is where we can see where the two communities are

intersecting and where they start colliding. teresa fernandez did a sculptural installation, utilizing the ubiquitous blue, white, and read patterns of a rayon bag that many communities used to transport laundry and laundromats to buy groceries and such. she created a little installation kind of mucking up the interior of a household, covering up as many objects that are familiar to the i and the fabric. fourth area of investigation that the exhibition looks at is the larger concerns of the asian and latin communities intersecting with popular cultur one best example -- when he's exemplified is what you see when you enter into the culture.

>> this piece refers to restaurants in tijuana. when you are driving, to speak chinese and you read chinese characters. you see these signs. i was trying to play with the idea of what you see and the direction you read. when you start mixing these different groups of people, different cultures, i like the idea. you can comment on somebody else's culture or someone else's understanding about culture. >> one of the hopes we have for visitors is that they go away taking a better understanding with the broadest and the breadth of issues impacting both the asian and latin communities here in california and how they spell out into the larger fabric of the communities we live and work in.

>> so thank you. i want to welcome everyone to a very exciting announcement around a pilot project we are kicking off today. and i also want to welcome everyone to one of the most parking challenged neighborhoods in san francisco, russian hill. i think it is well known that i do not own a car for good reason. but one thing i do want to mention is i used to live on russian hill. i actually did own a car for six months. it was a miserable experience. not just the cost of car ownership and gas and insurance and repairs, but every single night i had to spend half an hour looking for parking and when i didn't do a good job of parking, sfmta provided me with a ticket. so it was a very exciting moment when about two years ago, then city add vater -- administrator ed lee and i had a conversation with the c.e.o. of car share about what we could do to expand

car share in the neighborhood that is incredibly defense and that does not have the parking lots and the garages where city car share and zip car often put their cars. we know we have very challenged streets when it comes to transits. everyone who rides a car, anyone who tries to take a bus, tries to catch a cab knows the challenges we have in these very dense neighborhoods. so the thought of expanding car sharing, which you will hear often takes anywhere from 10 to 15 cars off the streets, was something that we wanted to try here on russian hill. my office worked with several russian hill neighborhood associations to suggest places on our streets for car sharing to become a reality. i want to thank mayor lee for his commitment literally now almost two years ago to work with my office, the sfmta, city administrator's office to really figure out how we can roll out this new and exciting pilot project. and you're going to hear more

about these details but the thing i will say in conclusion is with the city family coming together, we're going to provide another transit option for all of san francisco to hopefully bring us closer to our vision of a transit first city. with that i would like to welcome mayor lee to russian hill and welcome mayor lee has been a champion for car sharing and obviously making sure we have a transit first city. and i would like to invite him to say a few words. >> good morning. thank you, president chiu. yes, it was over two years ago where we began this conversation. but it also began with our own city fleet. and we were talking with city car share and zip car about how we can share vehicles and reduce carbon emissions and all of those great goals that mayor gavin newsome had announced that we wanted to really do enthusiastically. so if you see right in front of city hall the example that we gave everybody, the green car

showcase, that began with our effort to signal that we were willing to even give up city parking spaces. you know how valuable city parking spaces are, we have wars within city government around who's parking spaces those are. but to signal a big culture change, one that we felt was important to our future of the city in reducing cars, we made it our own goal to reduce our own city fleet and begin with that commitment first. so we did it, we did it with everybody's cooperation, m.t.a., city administrator as well as our purchaser to create that green car showcase. but we also realize there are many parts of the city as david mentioned that don't have ready access to public garages. so it was for us a challenge but one that we were very enthusiastic to try to pilot with city car share, and that is to get it into our most congested residential areas,

like russian hill and the area. so this is one of at least five spots that are happening and in fact around this area we're going to begin here first because we have a lot of residential support for this as well. and i look forward to the other six spots that we have already identified, have been under planning discussions with our city administrator, with our m.t.a., bring in a neighborhood where i live in glen park and also bay view, also dog patch, those areas as well as the outer sunset and inner sunset. those areas as well where we can really benefit from car sharing. i got educated really quickly over 2 1/2 years ago about a culture change in sharing cars. and while i know in this city we're trying to retain families and i know david is still single, so he's going tible for while to get without a car. once you get married, david and one there's that first child, then the pressure of having a

vehicle becomes a very big reality. and to have alternatives do that, and i think in reality terms, it's not so much just that first vehicle, really it's to prevent families from having to think about a second vehicle when they live in these residential tight areas. to use muni as much as possible. this is where we want to go. and i think we have a great partner to begin with in city car share because as a nonprofit, they know and they really have been working with us closely, not only with our own fleet but now the exposure to residential areas. i can't wait to get car sharing into even public housing. because you have seen some of the large parking areas near public housing and to be able to use that space to car share for our low-income residents and make sure they don't feel the pressures to have to not only buy a car to get around the city to their jobs but also to repair

their cars on those very valuable open spaces that we have. that's going to be i think a big culture change as well. i'm a big fan of this and i have been gratified in working with david chiu on this incredible experiment that i think is going to prove very successful. and the great thing about it is that the inertia is coming from residents themselves. they're willing to offer up very positive way their own spaces they have been competing for every single night to be able to use car sharing as a philosophy. i think that will come into very good practice, as has been with our own city fleet. i want to congratulate david for working with city government and all of the agencies here and also with city car share to have a great partner in doing this. >> thank you, mayor lee, and thank you for a way in mentioning my marital status in a way that will stress out my mother. i also want to echo one thing mayor lee just said, for folks

who have to own cars in san francisco, they may ask what is the benefit of on street car sharing for them. for every car we put on the street, we are taking every car off the street. we're making it easier for everyone to find parking spaces. i also want to mention in the past couple years there are a number of initiatives in the car-sharing space in san francisco. i required new developments to update the car sharing responses they have in their garages and spaces so again we can expand this throughout the city. one incredible partner in this effort has been our san francisco m.t.a. and i want to invite up ed risken, who has been a champion of many modes of transit but particularly car sharing, to say a few words today. ed? >> thank you, president chew -- chiu, mr. mayor. very glad to be here as the city's transportation director leading the agency that's charged with implementing the transit first policy.

we see car sharing as very integral to making transit first work here in san francisco. transit first is about making it convenient and accessible and attractive for people to live in san francisco without a car. certainly without a second car. and there are times while we want people to be able to ride and want to ride muni or to get around by bike or by foot or grab i cab when they need one, there are times when you need a car. speaking of someone who has no car and is married and has kids, it's doable in san francisco because car sharing fills that gap. car sharing is what makes it possible to live in san francisco without owning your own car. so we see it as very much integral to the transit-first policy and as president chiu mentioned, we see it as part of our parking solution. we're not taking away parking spaces by making them available for car share. we are adding parking capacity to the city by making spaces

available to car share, because those 10 or 15 people who are going to be using this one car behind us are not going to be bringing their own cars to the neighborhood to park, to compete for same spaces and be circling around creating pollution and congestion that fouls our air and slows our transit. so it's really a win-win solution. it's great for parking. it's great for implementing transit first. we're very proud to be working with the mayor, board president, city administrator's office to make this happen. we will be working with all of the partners here, city car share as well as neighborhoods to evaluate this over the next six months and like the mayor, we're very optimistic that it will be successful. thank you all for the leadership and support. it's a great day for transit first. >> so it's my pleasure to introduce our next speaker, who after our then city administrator became our interim mayor. it fell upon her shoulders to

actually figure out how to implement the details of this pilot program are interim city administrator amy brown. >> thank you, president chiu and mr. mayor. yes, i inherited a really great idea and had lots of help from our fleet director tom fang and deputy city administrator and working with the staff of the sfmta to implement it. very exciting day to see it come to fruition. one of the things that makes us so great to work for san francisco is we're not afraid to do bold or innovative things. i will share with you we put together a pilot with five spaces city wide that we were going to move forward. when it got to public hearings, when it got to the board, rather than have people react negatively do it, they reacted very positively. they said five spaces actually weren't enough. so we ended up being able to add six more spaces to the pilot program. so people wanted to go more big

and more bold. and our leaders wanted to do that. and that makes it exciting every day to come in and to have those new ideas when they're so well received. so i think this is going to be a great success. i think just the initial response to it with people saying what about my neighborhood, let's try it out in my neighborhood. it's very positive and i really look forward to seeing this rolled out beyond the pilot city wide and for a long time to come. so thank you all very much. >> our time speaker who helps to run the organization that is managing the fleet of city car share is laura haber. i do want to though take a moment to pull out my own city car share key flop with this piece of plastic and two minutes either on a phone or on a computer, you can actually access any of the cars in the entire fleet the city car share has. zip share also has a similar arrangement. with that i would like to invite up laura, who's here on behalf

of rick hutchison. rick and c.e.o. of zip car actually met with mayor lee and i two years ago to kick off the discussion around this pilot project and we very much want to thank city car share for being a great partner with the city. >> thank you, president chiu, mr. mayor. i am laura haber, director of marketing/planning for city car share. as was just alluded to, i'm here on behalf of rick hutchison who sends his regrets. as mentioned, this program is two years in the making. rick is the c.e.o. and now presenting at the international car association in montreal as we speak. car share is being promoted worldwide. just so you know, not just here in san francisco. i want to thank again mr. mayor, president chiu for the early vision and leadership in this program and sfmta and city administrator's office, who's been a pleasure to work with operationally. we're very excited about the launch of this pilot program for a number of reasons, not the recent of which raises profile of car sharing.

one of the aspects is making it more visible in the community with the very prime locations and congested neighborhoods and also makes it more accessible for people because many of our what we call pods, which are where cars are located or private garages or public garages and they're not as visible to the community. in these dense neighborhoods, car sharing does a couple things. number one, it puts people into a shared diesel experience and they rely more on other public forms of transportation, walking, biking, which is all to the good, more liveable and environmentally conscious city. alone last year, our members saved 40 million to 60 million pounds of co 2, which is astonishing given we have about 14,000 members, roughly over 9,000 here in san francisco alone, and we have a fleet of about 350 cars. so if you do the math, you realize that we can serve a lot of people with a lot fewer cars in san francisco and everyone is quite happy to get around. i think the neighbors and neighborhoods will be happy as well because one of the other benefits of car sharing, besides

the environmental benefit, is an economic benefit both to the individual because they save about $700 a month on car-related expenses. most people don't realize that's what you pay if you add up gas maintenance, registration, when you share a car for an hor or half day, you don't pay for gas, you don't pay for maintenance and don't pay for insurance. we have one of the best insurance programs in the country. so with that i would like to say this pilot program is something we're studying that's been mentioned. we want to make sure it's effective for the neighborhood, effective for users and we will look at the user experience and one of the last things again with the vitality of the neighborhoods is all of the extra money not being spent on your car limit can be spent by walking around the local merchant. not to leave that out of the equation. so that in mind, i would like to demonstrate i also have a handy electronic key fob and i can show you how it works. i'm a recent convert. i recently gave up my own car and never been happier. this is practically free

compared to what i was paying for my car. and i have a pod and everything else is included. i will get around to the other side and show you how it works. the other thing i will tell you, it takes as mentioned a few minutes to make a reservation online or on the phone. you get in and return it to the same location. it's that simple. member shd fees are nominal or annual or monthly, depending on your needs. here i go. >> i can drive away but i totally don't need to do that.