Closing Reception & Performances: Hidden Currencies

Celebrate the closing of Hidden Currencies: Water Justice in the Age of AI with an evening of poetry and performance. Poet Kim Shuck, former San Francisco Poet Laureate, shares a long form work tracing personal and collective journeys across waterways, exploring migration, identity, and the intertwined histories of humans and rivers. Multidisciplinary movement artist Babatunji brings On the Horizon to life through a dance activation, engaging audiences with water, climate, and embodied performance.

About the Artists

Kim Shuck is a Tsalagi (Cherokee)/Euro-American poet, author, visual artist, weaver, and beadwork artist born in San Francisco, California. She belongs to the Northern California Cherokee diaspora and is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. An Iconoclast in her field, she has contributed to 25 books as an author, co-author, editor, or member of editorial teams. In 2017, she was named the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco by Mayor Ed Lee.

Babatunji is a dance artist, choreographer, and creative innovator based out of Oakland, CA. Though never formally trained as a child, Babatunji was always moving his body to the beat. At the age of 15, he discovered the art of hip hop. Following this epiphany of love, he grew up through his teens breaking and popping on street corners in Hilo, Hawai’i. Over the past 10 years, Babatunji has developed a unique movement language, blending his background in ballet, contemporary, breaking, and hip hop. In 2015, he was awarded a "Princess Grace Award", as well as a "Chris Hellman Award" for his outstanding achievements and promise in the world of dance. Most recently, in 2024 he was awarded the "Dance & Movement Award" by the Gerbode Foundation.

Babatunji is immensely grateful to his mom for providing him with every opportunity and the guidance of her wisdom along the way.

© RJ Muna

Charmaine is a dancer and instructor based out of Oakland, CA. They attended Alonzo King LINES Ballet's Training Program. Charmaine has worked professionally for various choreographers, including Babatunji, Beth Terwilleger, Cameo Lethem, Chuck Wilt, Dani Rowe, Dwight Rhoden, Rena Butler, Robert Moses and performed with Ballet22, Ballare Carmel, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, SFJazz, Sharp & Fine, and Smuin Contemporary Ballet. They worked closely with Moscelyne ParkeHarrison throughout 5 seasons dancing with Robin Dekker’s Post:ballet. In 2025, they premiered an original role in Matthew Ozawa’s Parsifal for San Francisco Opera. As an instructor, Charmaine teaches rigorous and inspiring contemporary ballet classes as well as breaking based floorwork approaches inspired by their time working with Babatunji.

About the Hidden Currencies Series

​Presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco, Hidden Currencies explores water as a living medium whose circulation sustains both life and technological innovation. The series highlights connections between Switzerland’s longstanding commitments to water stewardship, diplomacy, and innovation, and the Bay Area’s role as a global hub for research and technology.

​​The central exhibition features works by six artists whose practices span photography, sculpture, installation, performance, video, and data art: Mark Baugh-Sasaki, Kristiana Chan 莊礼恩, Céline Ducret, Ana Teresa Fernández, Greg Niemeyer, and Annelia Norris (pue leek la').

​An adjoining experiential hub features interventions by City Studio (Amy Berk + Chris Treggiari), Ani Moskovyan, Greg Niemeyer, Samuel Wildmann, Tania Claudia Castillo, Candice Mays, and Juana Perfecta. Together, these works invite visitors to reckon with water's hidden presence in everyday life — drawing audiences into direct encounters with the systems, costs, and migrations that water quietly connects.

Curated by Amy Kisch, Founder of AKArt Advisory and Art+Action, the exhibition unfolds as an immersive experience that extends beyond the gallery through a series of interdisciplinary activations bringing together Swiss and U.S. artists, filmmakers, Indigenous knowledge holders, policymakers, scientists, and climate activists to explore water, climate justice, and imagined futures.

This event is presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland in San Francisco in collaboration with AKArt Advisory, EAWAG, Stanford Doerr School Sustainability Accelerator, and Geneva Water Hub, and supported by Presence Switzerland and EAWAG.

For more information or to explore other Swiss events, visit SwissImpact.