Root Division
1131 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
SOMA / Mid-Market
Monday | Closed
Tuesday | Closed
Wednesday | 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Thursday | 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Friday | 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Saturday | 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM*
Sunday | Closed
Saturday by appointment only here.
Thursday, April 2 | 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Artist Talk and Panel Conversation moderated by Elena Gross
Join us for an intimate conversation with artist Trina Michelle Robinson along with collaborators Ashley Spencer, Chloe King, Jasmine Narkita Wiley and Lynse Cooper, moderated by writer and curator Elena Gross. At Root Division, Robinson presents an expanded version of Elegy for Nancy (2022) — a tender tribute to her oldest known ancestor. This immersive installation includes special contributions from fellow Bay Area artists, highlighting how collective knowledge, imagination, and care can reframe historical erasure. Open Your Eyes to Water is a two-site solo exhibition that spans 500 Capp Street and Root Division.
Thursday, April 2 | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Reception for Erik Barrios-Recendez: Betwixt and Between
Betwixt and Between confronts the social apparatus that determines one’s ability to survive. Categories of identity such as class, race, and gender shape social hierarchies and influence the perception of individual merit. What happens when inherited understandings of labor and worth collide with the realities of surviving? Actively preserving significant imagery of protest, San Francisco counter-culture, and the queer community, artist Erik Barrios-Recendez uses collage to fuse together layers that replicate the many parts that exist within dictating social systems. In this new body of work, Barrios-Recendez reflects on the emotions that surface from resisting social structures, and from confronting the reality of his existence in a queer Latino body.
Trina Michelle Robinson: Open Your Eyes to Water | February 13 - May 16, 2026
500 Capp Street and Root Division is proud to present Open Your Eyes to Water, a solo exhibition of San Francisco-based artist Trina Michelle Robinson. For nearly a decade, Robinson has utilized an embodied, research-based, and multidisciplinary approach rooted in personal and historical archives to create immersive installations that explore ancestry, memory, and migration. Presenting newly created works and reimagined installations, including Elegy for Nancy (2022), a tender homage to Robinson’s oldest known ancestor, Robinson offers space for reflection, reckoning and intergenerational healing.
Trina Michelle Robinson is a San Francisco-based visual artist. Her work has been shown at the BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia, the San Francisco Art Commission Main Gallery, ICA San José, Minnesota Street Project, New York’s Wassaic Project, Bay Area Now 9 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and For-Site’s acclaimed Black Gold: Stories Untold. Her work is also included in Paper is People: Decolonizing Global Paper Cultures, a traveling exhibition co-curated by Tia Blassingame and Stephanie Sauer, which was at San Francisco Center for the Book in 2024 and will be shown in Atlanta in 2025. She had a solo exhibition at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), a Smithsonian Affiliate. Robinson is a 2024 SFMOMA SECA Award finalist and was recently nominated for the 2024 Anonymous Was A Woman (AWAW) Award. Her print series Ghost Prints of Loss is included in the book Is Now the Time for Joyous Rage? published in 2023 by CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts and Sternberg Press. She received her M.F.A. from California College of the Arts in 2022.
Erik Barrios-Recendez: Betwixt and Between | March 12 - April 4, 2026
Curated by Kristina Singleton
The Frank Ratchye Project Space is pleased to present Betwixt and Between, a solo exhibition by Root Division Studio Artist Erik Barrios-Recendez.
Betwixt and Between confronts the social apparatus that determines one’s ability to survive. Categories of identity such as class, race, and gender shape social hierarchies and influence the perception of individual merit. What happens when inherited understandings of labor and worth collide with the realities of surviving? Actively preserving significant imagery of protest, San Francisco counter-culture, and the queer community, artist Erik Barrios-Recendez uses collage to fuse together layers that replicate the many parts that exist within dictating social systems. In this new body of work, Barrios-Recendez reflects on the emotions that surface from resisting social structures, and from confronting the reality of his existence in a queer Latino body.
Image:
A still from Trina Michelle Robinson’s 2025 short film Transposing Landscapes- A Requiem for Charles Young