SARAH R FILLEY
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Photo credit: Eva Kolenko

Sarah Filley is an artist and social entrepreneur bringing design thinking to city scale.  ​
She advocates for micro-entrepreneurs, designs adaptive spaces, creative places, strategic policies, and innovative systems to accelerate inclusive, equitable, and sustainable growth for the cities of the future. ​

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Her practice uses humor and technology in the service of wonder to re-engage citizens with the city as a platform, resulting in a dynamic reflection of social, economic, and historical forces; our dreams, hopes and deepest desires. She explores themes of preparedness and paranoia, extension and prosthesis (erotic, spiritual, ecological) through the lens of our present urban condition in sculptures, photography, and public works. As a consultant, her projects are artist driven and centered around previously excluded voices blended to engineer civic strategies building upon an emerging aesthetic of prosperity.

Public spaces are a micro-zones for shared or contested values around the common stewardship of resources, civic agency, and geographies of belonging. As an emerging area of praxis, her work blurs the line between art and urban design in public spaces to reclaim parts of ourselves, communicate belonging, transform, heal, offer solace, reveal our place in the universe. ​

Regenerative Futurist
CEO & Cofounder of 
Popuphood
Senior Consultant with The Justice Collective
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Her work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, (2012 Venice, IT and 2013 Chicago, IL), The Seattle Art Museum (SAM), projects include urban prototypes, civic engagements, and radical placemaking, and public works exhibited in museums and galleries nationally. 

Performances / Public Engagement ​

​Exhibitions

ybca, Future think tank series,  San Francisco, CA 2016/7
Exploratorium, Wonderarium, Surreal AfterDark,  San Francisco, CA 2011
Uptown/Lake Merritt Community Benefits District, 
Mobile Plant Ambassador,  Oakland First Friday, Oakland, CA 2011
​Exploratorium, Wonderarium, Nomadic Communities AfterDark
, San Francisco, CA 2010
SJ01 Zero1 Festival, Wonderarium, Green Prix,  San Jose, CA 2010
Worth Ryder Gallery, Art Practice Dept.,University of California at Berkeley, Wonderarium, Knowledge Hacking, Berkeley, CA 2010
East Bay mini-Maker Faire, Wonderarium, Oakland, CA 2010
San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, 
Wonderarium, SLURP! San Francisco, CA 2010
California Academy of Sciences, 
Wonderarium, ParkLife NightLife, San Francisco, CA 2010
Venice Biennale of Architecture,​ Spontaneous Interventions, Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL 2013
Venice Biennale of Architecture
,​ Spontaneous Interventions, US Pavilion, Venice, Italy 2012
Wonderarium, Outlandish, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA 2011
Knot series, photography, SFArtPad, Krowswork,
San Fransisco, CA 2011             
Survive This!, ShadowShop, SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA 2010
Prayer Rope, Installation, It’s own Nothingness, Krowswork Gallery, Oakland, CA 2010
Wonderarium, Knowledge Hacking, Worth Ryder Gallery, UC Berkeley, CA 2010
Prayer Rope, EpiscoDisco, Grace Cathedral Gallery,
San Francisco, CA 2009                             
Prayer Rope, installation, Spirit Rappings, Hamburger Eyes Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2009
Prayer Rope, Installation, Fresh Work, Kala Art Institute,
​Oakland, CA 2008
Prayer Rope, installation, Innovation & Imagination, Seattle Art Museum Gallery, Seattle, WA 2008
Camo Series (photos), The Camo Show, Dominican University of California: San Marco Gallery Curator: Stephanie Peak 2007
She has co-created seminars for tactical urbanism and urban prototyping at California College of Arts, serves as an Advisory Board Member for Newaukee in Milwaukee, WI., sits on the Economic Development Working group for the Los Angeles Slate Z initiative, Business and Economic Development Advisory Committee for the California State Assembly, ​and served as a judge for the 2014 NEA Our Town Grant. As a participant in a prestigious roster of national organizations she has lent her creative approach to local economic development to international cities, national panels, and webinars. Popuphood was awarded participation in the 2012 Venice Biennale for Architecture US pavilion in Venice, Italy and in the 2013 Venice Biennale in Chicago, IL.  
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She
 is quoted in global reports like ArtPlace and PSFK along with the national press like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Fast Company, The Huffington Post and some other places. ​

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    • ABOUT
      • CV
    • CREATIVE PROJECTS
    • SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
    • CONTACT
    • BLOG