Emma Fineman: The Genesis Project | January 21 - 23, 2027

"The Genesis Project" at Grace Cathedral is a site-specific activation led by Emma Fineman, marking the artist’s first major institutional project. The performance will debut for three nights only from January 21st–23rd, 2027 during San Francisco Art Week.

Rooted in interdisciplinary collaboration, "The Genesis Project" integrates performance, sound, installation, painting, and film. Each component revolves around new large-scale paintings by Emma Fineman that both restage the Book of Genesis and respond to pre-existing murals at Grace Cathedral through an intersectional feminist lens. Fineman’s work, rendered in oil, charcoal, encaustic, and hessian on movable panels, acts as an immersive yet fluid “chapel” within the unique cathedral architecture. Dancers in custom regalia will weave through the paintings led by choreographers Babatunji Johnson and Charmaine Butcher. A new musical score by composer Ross Wallace Chait and live performances by Khatchadour Khatchadourian, Sidney Chen, and Mary Lattimore will unite in a layered sonic environment.

A common thread of becoming—reshaping ourselves and the world around us—runs through each medium. For years, Fineman’s artistic practice has interrogated how foundational myths served to promote subjugation, control, and domination. Much of the Genesis story in particular was designed to enforce a Western vision of humanity where hierarchy (of man over woman, animal, and nature) and individualism reigned. But myth-making can also be a collective and generative process. "The Genesis Project" rejects the oversimplified logic of religious shame, hierarchies, and gender binaries. It instead invites audience members to participate in shared curiosity and storytelling.

This activation bridges faith and queerness to celebrate difference as a source of spiritual growth, embodiment, and knowledge production. In our current moment of political division and digital isolation, this project is all about human presence: gathering, connecting, and designing new rituals together where queerness offers us a reframe and a path forward. Fineman asks: what are the myths, roles, and choreographies we’ve inherited? What are the myths, roles, and choreographies we might create anew?

Collaborators include movement director KT Nelson; choreographers and performers Charmaine Butcher, Babatunji Johnson, and Shinichi Iova-Koga; vocalists and musicians Khatchadour Khatchadourian and Sidney Chen; composer Ross Wallace Chait; and harpist Mary Lattimore. Produced alongside the Grace Cathedral activation will be an artist film by Camilla Greenwell, offering a visual echo of the project’s themes, and a documentary film by Dina Paola Rodriguez, following the behind-the-scenes collaboration, rehearsals, and performance.

Images:

Emma Fineman in her studio. Photo: Sam Hylton.

Choreographers Charmaine and Babatunji rehearsing at Grace Cathedral for "The Genesis Project." Video still courtesy of Dina Paola Rodriguez.

Vocalist Khatchadour Khatchadourian rehearsing at Grace Cathedral for "The Genesis Project." Video still courte.