Resume
Chris Carlsson
415/608-9035 • cc@chriscarlsson.com
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2005-present
Owner, Cloverleaf Productions, San Francisco
Book, magazine and multimedia design, desktop publishing, graphic design. Selected client list.
1995-Present
Director, Managing Editor, Chief Writer and Curator and Photographer
SHAPING SAN FRANCISCO: The Interactive Multimedia Excavation of the Lost History of San Francisco CD-ROM, Public Kiosk, Website–online archive at FoundSF.org
2012-present
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, California Institute of Integral Studies
“Labor and Ecological History of San Francisco, Radical History of San Francisco,” “Oral History and Movement Building”
2024
Author
When Shells Crumble
Spuyten Duyvil, Brooklyn, NY
2021
Instructor, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University
“Discovering Hidden San Francisco” 2.5 hour mini-course
2020
Author
Hidden San Francisco: A Guide to Lost Landscapes, Unsung Heroes, and Radical Histories
Pluto Press
2015-2018
Adjunct Professor, University of San Francisco, in Masters of Public and Urban Affairs program at Leo McCarthy Center.
“Work and the City” (UPA-690-01)
“Prospectus and Research Practicum” (UA-641-01)
2015
Video Organizer, Living New Deal project
Establishing LND video channel on Internet Archive, uploading and organizing 130+ video clips from National Archives and other sources.
2011-2014
Visiting Faculty, San Francisco Art Institute
Urban Studies, Humanities 201B, “Shaping San Francisco at the Dawn of Industrialization”
Urban Studies, “Urbanism Through a Local Lens”
Urban Studies, “The City in Nature”
Urban Studies, “Dredge: A History of the Hydrological and Hydraulic Bay Area and California”
2013-14
Curatorial Development and Research, writing, design
Tenderloin Museum
2012
Photographic Research and Curatorial Work
Exploratorium, San Francisco
2012
Co-Editor, Co-Designer, Contributing Writer
Shift Happens! Critical Mass at 20
Full Enjoyment Books
2011
Editor, Designer, Contributing Writer
TEN YEARS THAT SHOOK THE CITY: San Francisco 1968-78
City Lights Foundation Books
Winner, Gold Medal, 81st Annual California Book Awards for “Contribution to Publishing”
2011
Designer, Curator, Author of expanded 2nd edition
VANISHED WATERS
Mission Creek Conservancy, San Francisco
2009-2011
Contributing Writer, sf.streetsblog.org
2008
Author, Designer, Indexer
NOWTOPIA
AK Press (Oakland, Edinburgh, London)
Italian translation: Now Utopia, Shake Edizioni, 2009 (Milan, Italy)
Portuguese translation: Nowtopia, Tomo Editorial, 2014 (Porto Alegre, Brazil)
2007 Autumn
Adjunct Faculty, New College of California
taught “Shaping San Francisco’s Future” class
2006
Indexer
The Modern School Movement, by Paul Avrich
AK Press (Oakland, Edinburgh, London)
1983-2005
Owner, Typesetting Etc., San Francisco
Typesetter, graphic designer, web designer. For twenty years, Typesetting Etc. served hundreds of typesetting/graphic design clients.
2004
Author, Designer
AFTER THE DELUGE
Full Enjoyment Books (San Francisco)
2004
Editor, Contributor, Designer, Indexer
THE POLITICAL EDGE
City Lights Foundation (San Francisco)
2004
Indexer
LANGUAGE AND POLITICS, by Noam Chomsky, ed. Carlos Otero
Published by AK Press, Oakland, California.
2002
Editor, Contributor, Designer
CRITICAL MASS: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration
AK Press (Oakland, CA: 2002)
Critical Mass: L’uso sovversivo della bicicletta (Italian translation)
Feltrinelli Editore Milano (Milan, Italy: 2003)
1998
Co-editor, Co-designer, Contributor
RECLAIMING SAN FRANCISCO: History, Politics, Culture
City Lights Books (San Francisco: 1998)
1997-99
Art Director, Editorial Consultant, Web Designer
GREAT BASIN Magazine (Carson City, Nevada)
1990
Co-editor, Co-designer, Contributor
BAD ATTITUDE: The Processed World Anthology Verso Books (London: 1990)
1981-1994, 2001, 2004-5
Co-founder, Co-publisher/editor/art director/etc. Collective member
Processed World magazine Within an ever-fluctuating unpaid collective environment, managed to produce 32 issues over thirteen years. Contributing writer, artist, copy editor, art director, publisher, managing editor, etc. Over a hundred graphics, fake ads, collages, etc. Frequent writer on questions of work, unions, ecology, technology, utopias, etc.
1986-93, 1999-2007
Co-founder, Board President (2003-2008)
CounterPULSE (formerly Bay Area Center for Art & Technology)
A California non-profit corporation which sponsors numerous projects in literary, media, and performance arts.
1981-1983
Secretary/Receptionist
Pacific Software, Berkeley, CA Pacific Software was the for-profit marketing company created by the progressive computer collective project called the Community Memory Project (CM). In the pre-net, post ’60s era, Community Memory’s theoreticians designed a system of public computer terminals in which anyone could put any message, comment, news, poetry, etc. and anyone could answer it and so on, in public places. CM anticipated the popularity of Internet participation by nearly two decades. Their own system has been installed and maintained in Santa Monica, California, Berkeley, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, to name a few places.
HONORS & AWARDS
October 2014
Bicycle History Tours Win “Best Cruise Into the Past” from SF Bay Guardian Best of the Bay 40th anniversary (and final) issue!
June 2012
Gold Medal, 81st Annual California Book Awards for “Contribution to Publishing” for Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-78
March 2011
Joined board of Mission Creek Conservancy
May 2009
Best S.F. Historian, SF Weekly
July 2007
Bicycle History Tours Win “Best Cruise Into the Past” from SF Bay Guardian Best of the Bay!
September 2006
Resident, Blue Mountain Center Writers’ Colony, Blue Mountain Lake, NY
October 2001
“GOLDEN WHEEL” Award from the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
August-September 2001
Resident, Blue Mountain Center Writers’ Colony, Blue Mountain Lake, NY
October 1999
Resident, The Mesa Refuge Writers’ Retreat, Pt. Reyes Station, CA
July 1999
“LOCAL HERO” AWARD from the San Francisco Bay Guardian
May 1998
AWARD OF MERIT from the San Francisco Historical Society
October 1991
Winner, Best Documentary, Humboldt State Univ. Film & Video Festival for Brazilian Dreams: Visiting Points of Resistance.
Processed World magazine
- 1990
Media Alliance Meritorious Achievement Award in Community Journalism - 1990
Finalist, Alternative Press Awards, Utne Reader
• Coverage of Cutting-Edge Issues - 1989
Finalist, Alternative Press Awards, Utne Reader
• Coverage of Cutting-Edge Issues
• Essays and Criticism
• Humor
Photography
in Panorama 4Q 2020, the journal of the San Francisco Historical Society
in BOOM: A Journal of California
in Where the Locals Go
in Why Is That Bridge Painted Orange?
in Shift Happens! Critical Mass at 20
in MAS Context, “The Ghost Streets of San Francisco”
With “King of the Road” in Boom, A Journal of California, #3, Fall 2011
Cover and a half dozen others in Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco’s Misson Bay (March 2011)
Hundreds of photos at nowtopians.com
Anti-G8 protests in Rostock Germany on Indybay.org
June 2: Another World is Possible
June 3: Anti-G8 solidarity sit-in
June 3: Resistance is Fruitful!
June 4: The Right to Movement
and in the Brooklyn Rail
cover, The Political Edge (City Lights Foundation, San Francisco: 2004)
Critical Mass photography appearing in
Critical Mass: L’uso sovversivo della bicicletta
(Feltrinelli Editore Milano, Italy: 2003)
Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration
(AK Press 2002)
City For Sale
(Berkeley: UC Press, 2001)
2000 Peace Calendar and postcards
Orion Afield (Vol. 4, No. 1, Autumn 2000)
Natural Health magazine (Jan./Feb. 2000)
Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture
(San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 1998)
Sierra magazine (Sept./Oct. 1998)
PUBLIC ART
June 2013
“Layers of History: Mapping 40 Years of Resistance” as part of the Mission Art & Performance Project in conjuncton with the La Llorona Public Lament/Procession about Ellis Act Evictions in the Mission. Adobe Books, 24th Street.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC ART installations (co-producer)
October 2003
“Waist High (and Higher) in E-Waste” Market and Van Ness, part of the Department of Space and Land Reclamation weekend of events.
June 1999
“Wall Street West is All Tied Up!” Montgomery between California and Pine, SF
August 1994
“Monument to Obsolete Technology & Useless Skills” South Park, SF
February 1993
“The Door Is Always Open” Justin Herman Plaza, SF
May 1992
“Clipicide: The Death of a Time Thief” Victoria Theater, SF
September 1992-Present
Critical Mass monthly bike ride, co-founder, participant
STREET THEATER
November 2007
“Hunting the Now/Cazanda el momento”
with the CounterNarrative Society, a map and treasure hunt of Mission and Valencia Streets in San Francisco
March 2007
Bay Area Direct Action Secret Society (BADASS): Abu Ghraib demo
May/June 1999
Art & Revolution Convergence: “May Day Pageant”
August 1998
Shaking San Francisco “ATM Theater”
May 1998
Shaking San Francisco: “The Rememberator”
1980-81
Union of Concerned Commies: “No Nukes is Not Enough!”
DOCUMENTARY VIDEO
2017
Mankiller: The Documentary Film Celebrating the Life of Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to be elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Contributing historian, on-camera interviewee.
2014
Anti-Economy League of San Francisco Visits Eastern Europe: a never-quite-finished half hour of footage from the strange journey of several radicals to warn eastern Europeans about the future just as the iron curtain was falling in April 1990.
2006
Still We Ride: 37 minute documentary on NY Critical Mass and the crackdown by police during and after the Republican National Convention in 2004. Produced by Elizabeth Press, Andrew Lynn, and Christopher Ryan. A 20 minute “extra” is an extended interview with Chris Carlsson.
1999
We Aren’t Blocking Traffic, We ARE Traffic!: an hour long documentary on Critical Mass, its origins, philosophy, expansion around the world, the 1997 police riot, and more. Featured subject of video, as well as consultant, contributor of footage and still photography. (Produced and directed by Ted White).
1994
Noah’s Ark: A Neozapatista Delirium: A half-hour visit to the National Democratic Convention held in rebel territory at Aguascalientes, Chiapas, Mexico during August ’94, featuring excerpts from Subcomandante Marcos’ keynote speech. (co-produced with Caitlin Manning) Noah’s Ark was installed as part of the Arts of Mexico exhibit at the San Francisco Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 1995 and was broadcast on The Nineties television series.
1991
Brazilian Dreams: Visiting Points of Resistance A 60-minute documentary about contemporary social movements in Brazil, as seen through the eyes of two American travelers. Winner, Best Documentary, Humboldt State Univ. Film & Video Festival, 1991. Screened at Montreal Women’s Film Festival 1991, San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, KMPT (Oakland, California), KCSM (PBS San Mateo), The Nineties television series, and Free Speech TV. It was in educational distribution to Universities in the U.S and Mexico, and is currently being re-issued on DVD for our distributor, AKPress. (co-produced with Caitlin Manning)
EDUCATION
1975-76 Sonoma State University, Philosophy
1978-79 San Francisco State University, Spanish/Political Science
1993-94 San Francisco State University Downtown Extension