SF CAMERAWORK STAFF, BOARD, COMMITTEES, & SUPPORTERS

Featured
Renaikha Cruz Fermin
Renaikha Cruz Fermin

Executive Director

Renaikha Cruz Fermin is a first generation Latinx Artist-Administrator with a professional history in Non Profit Organizations, Art Specific Companies, and Events based industries. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for Visual Arts under a Merit Scholarship, then worked for institutions such as the Tacoma Art Museum, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Renaikha's background spans a spectrum of experience in Project/Event Management, Business Administration + Company Operations, Content Curation, and Museum Education/Programs, in addition to being an Accredited Museum Docent.

She is deeply involved with the vibrant art community in the Bay Area as an avid supporter associating with various local artists and art professionals, and through her emerging art collection. She also cultivates social-creative events to forge lasting legacy in the arts community, with a focus on the historic Bayview-Hunter's Point neighborhood where she resides.

Renaikha can be reached at renaikha@sfcamerawork.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Featured
Jonathan Calm
Jonathan Calm

President

Artist and Assistant Professor Art & Art History, Stanford University

Jonathan Calm (he/him) is a visual artist in the media of photography and video, represented by Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco, and assistant professor at Stanford University.

Jonathan was the 2019 recipient of the prestigious Headlands Center for the Arts Larry Sultan Photography Award in partnership with McEvoy Foundation for the Arts and Pier 24 Photography.

The KQED Arts profile Jonathan Calm Revisits ‘Green Book’ Locations in Search of America’s Past and Present was nominated for a 2020 Northern California Area Emmy Award for Best Historic/Cultural-Feature/Segment.

Stephanie Cochinos
Stephanie Cochinos

Development & Finance Committee

With two decades of expertise in growth strategy and innovation, Stephanie Cochinos has held leadership roles at Fortune 100, fintech, and consulting companies.  She is the founder of 195 Strategy, focused on transforming complex business challenges into human-centered solutions. She holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

As a photographer, Stephanie creates work that explores the intersection of cultural identity and place, highlighting the poetry found in landscapes and built environments across the world.  The images reflect her interest in how shared human experiences transcend geographic and cultural boundaries.  Her work has been featured in an exhibition at the Los Angeles Center of Photography. 

Brooke Farrington
Brooke Farrington

Artist/Creative Director

Governance Chair

Brooke Farrington is a Creative Director with two decades in the fashion and advertising industries. She has worked with new, emerging and heritage brands over her career and provides creative leadership on and off-set. Brooke is a published photographer, a curator and collector of contemporary photographs and holds a BA in Photography from The Academy of Art University.

Brookes personal work focuses on the human condition through portraiture, editorial storytelling and the vibrant dreamworld of fashion fantasy. She often gives back to the community by supporting non-profit organizations as well as emerging brands/ small businesses with her creative contributions. She is most inspired by and thrives in her collaborations with other artists and the community around her. Brooke is a Bay Area native and lives and works in Oakland, Ca.

Jamil Hellu
Jamil Hellu

Artist and Stanford University Lecturer

Secretary

Through a multidisciplinary art practice that spans photography, video, and site installations, Jamil Hellu’s work focuses on themes of identity, visibility, and cultural heritage, while expressing a shift towards a world beyond binaries. Navigating from a personal lens, his projects weave together strategies of performance and photographic representation to point to the tensions found in the evolving discourse about sexuality.

Born in Brazil, Hellu holds a Masters in Fine Arts in Art Practice from Stanford University and a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute.

He is a Photography Lecturer in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University. An active member in the San Francisco Bay Area arts community, Hellu serves as an advisory board member for Recology’s Artist-in-Residence Program.

Joanna Knutsen
Joanna Knutsen

Development Committee

Joanna Knutsen (she/her) is a photographer and arts professional from San Francisco. She graduated from New York University with a major in Art History and a minor in Anthropology. Before joining SF Camerawork as a former Gallery Manager, Joanna was a Digital Marketing Specialist at Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco, and a Work Scholar at Aperture Foundation in New York. Her own photographic work is interested in the impressions and histories of natural landscapes.

Whitney Lawson
Whitney Lawson

Vice President

Whitney Lawson studied photography at Yale as an undergraduate and worked at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum before a 20-year career in publishing where she was a photo editor at The New Yorker, New York, Travel + Leisure, and did photo projects for T (the New York Times Style Magazine), Elle Décor, and Hearst Design Group. Now in her “nonprofit era,” she is the president of the board of directors at Millay Arts and is the chair of the Capital Campaign committee at Greenwich House Pottery in New York City. She is studying to get a masters degree in Nonprofit Management at Columbia University.

Susan Malone
Susan Malone

Treasurer

CPA, Managing Partner, Hood & Strong

Susan Malone (she/her) is the managing partner of Hood & Strong LLP, and an active member of the Firm’s Not-for-Profit Service Group. Susan's client involvement is exclusively with not-for-profit organizations and she has more than 30 years of experience in public accounting.

Ashima Yadava
Ashima Yadava

Programming Committee Chair

Ashima Yadava is a conceptual documentary photographer and printmaker. With the camera as her conduit, Ashima believes in art as a means to social activism and reform. Her work is rooted in long-form stories with a focus on issues of gender, race, and social justice.

Born in New Delhi, India and based in San Francisco, she works in digital and analog methods including large format and silkscreen. She is currently a California Arts Council Fellow and Director of Programming at Authority Collective. Her work has been featured in publications including NPR, National Geographic, Mother Jones, SFChronicle, and exhibited around the world at places like Root Division, deYoung Museum, the United Nations in New York, Rotterdam Photo Festival, Rhode Island School of Design, International Center of Photography, NY, Technische Dresden in Germany, She is a Director’s Fellow from the ICP, New York. 

Ashima is the founder of Huq : I Seek No Favor. Huq brings together over 100 artists and thinkers to respond to the abortion ban.

Instagram: @indigonyx

Miles Urban

Summer 2025 Intern

Miles Urban is a student/artist from Marin County working primarily with photography. He currently attends Wesleyan University. Urban has a thorough background in visual studies, with a particular interest in the formal capacities of the picture to conceive of new worlds and ideas.

Working between the view camera and digital processes, Urban’s personal work explores the production and durability of American mythology, exploring the domestic as a site of both romance and horror. When he is not making pictures, Urban enjoys reading, adventuring with friends, watching horror films, and spending time with his family.

DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

  • Whitney Lawson, Chair

  • Jonathan Calm

  • Stephanie Cochinos

  • Brooke Farrington

  • Joanna Knutsen

  • Ashima Yadava

FINANCE COMMITTEE

  • Susan Malone, Chair

  • Jonathan Calm

  • Stephanie Cochinos

  • Jamil Hellu

GOVERNANCE COMMITTEE

  • Brooke Farrington, Chair

  • Jonathan Calm

  • Joanna Knutsen

  • Whitney Lawson

PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE

  • Ashima Yadava, Chair

  • Brooke Farrington

  • Jamil Hellu

SUPPORTERS

SF Camerawork receives significant support in the form of grants and in-kind donations from San Francisco Grants for the Arts, Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture, The Heliocentric Arts Fund, The Joy of Giving Something, Skyline Foundation, and Drusie Davis Family Foundation as well as individual contributors, and SF Camerawork's Membership.

Special Thanks to Our Generous Contributors of 2024-2025:

for more information about donating at the Collector’s Circle (1K) level, sponsoring an exhibition, and other ways to donate, please visit our donation page.


Leith Brooks Barry 
Michelle Branch
Jessie Barker
Jonathan Calm and Matthew Horridge
Ciel Creative Space
Katie Colendich
Adam Chin
Jim and Diane Coward
Eugene Dominique
Drusie Davis
Binh Danh 
Dave Elfving
Brooke Farrington
Anne and Peter Griffes
Katie Hall and Tom Knutsen 
Herb Ritts Foundation
Kathleen Hormel
Michael Light
Whitney Lawson
Susan Malone
Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation
Kate and Wes Mitchell 
Larry Reed
Derek Schrier and Cecily Cameron
Alison Taggart-Barone
Sharon Tanenbaum
Katherine Thompson
Jon Tigar
Kenneth Weinberg
Paul Sack

Joanna Knutsen

Elaine Mellis

Ligaya Tichy

David Matesanz and Andrew Johnstone