Pauline Kanako Kamiyama
Operations Director
505.424.5050 ext.
pkamiyama@sfai.org
Pauline brings over 20 years of experience in the arts and culture section, primarily in civic and community-based institutions. Through her various roles she has been a strong advocate for community engagement with innovative problem solving and collaborative strategies.She has a particular interest in creative placekeeping that brings artists, residents, business owners, civic and community stakeholders together to assess and build upon the unique physical and social character of a place through creative activities and connected engagement. She has worked on community development initiatives around issues of affordable housing, cultural equity, inclusion, health and sustainability.
Under her purview as the former Director of the City of Santa Fe Arts and Culture Department she provided leadership by and for the City to support arts and cultural affairs; recommended policies and programs that developed and promoted artistic excellence in the community through the lens of equity and social justice. Program areas included grants, art in public places, community gallery, youth and adult poet laureates, city historian, Mayor’s Awards in the Arts. In response to the coronavirus and its impact on the artistic and cultural community, she initiated the Culture Connects Coalition Artist Relief Fund to provide $500 relief awards to individual artists in all mediums.
As the former Deputy Director of Civic Art for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Pauline was responsible for planning, developing and implementing what is becoming one of the largest public art programs in the country. She created and managed the Creative Strategist Initiative that embeds artists in County Departments as part of the Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative.