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 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, an artists residency in upstate New York. She is studying to get a masters degree in Nonprofit Management at Columbia University, specializing in artists residencies and intentional communities for artists.  She splits her time between New York and San Francisco.  

Artist and Assistant Professor Art & Art History, Stanford University

Finance Commitee

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.

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.

Artist and Stanford University Lecturer

Programming Commitee

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.

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.