Works/San Jose’s exhibitions, performances, and workshops engage and advance local artists and curators—providing art experiences along with professional opportunities. Exhibitions from community-based proposals and collaborative events with local pan-cultural groups form the basis of Works’ programming. Works/San Jose has a commitment to local voices and local ideas. While Works has always been grassroots, and many established artists claim Works as their first experience, we now require that exhibit proposals have a local advancement goal. The result of this philosophy is that Works provides a quality forum for new and often otherwise unnoticed and unencouraged local talent.

Works practices a form of radical inclusion, where artists and aspiring independent curators are guided in proposing and presenting conceptual exhibitions from and for our communities. Proposals are reviewed by our Board with members in their 20s to 60s, who are mostly artists as well, coming to consensus rather than giving decisions to a single curatorial voice. This is in contrast to individual personality-driven galleries and institutions where the standard selection process is philosophically narrow, hierarchical, and typically results in a simple ‘yes/no’ result for an artist. In contrast, Works fosters proposals from outside, develops concepts with artists and curators, and provides a rare chance for public expression here in our city. “Open call” and non-juried exhibits broaden inclusion further with recurring opportunities for any and all artists to show work in response to a conceptual prompt. These commitments and resulting community-driven programming speak to the aspirations of emerging artists throughout our communities, and form the heart of our mission.