THE LIVING PROGRAM

The Living Program

An invitation

Gather at
Heron Arts.

San Francisco
February 14 – March 28, 2027

Conversations,
meals, music
& movement.

Alongside Materia, an exhibition of women working in wood.

We’re inviting speakers, collaborators and sponsors to help shape the program.

Speak or contribute Support the program
Louise Ireland’s forest mural, filmed at home. Still image: gallery visualization.
The exhibition opensFebruary 3, 2027
The Living ProgramFebruary 14 – March 28, 2027Pause March 22–27 · Ends Easter Sunday
Current stageDeveloping the programSpeaking with contributors and sponsors

About the program

A celebration of life,
through art and experience.

Materia is a group exhibition at Heron Arts. The Living Program is a collaboration between its organizers and contributors. It accompanies the show with intimate gatherings that give people a way into the art through experience.

We want people to leave feeling grounded, refreshed, and more open to art.

Who we want in the room

Artists, musicians, people building AI, ecologists, philosophers, spiritual practitioners, doctors, writers, and people who are simply curious. We want to bring different parts of San Francisco into the same room.

What the gatherings have in common

The art is part of each experience. We favor live, intimate encounters, contrasting perspectives, and thoughtful surprises. Guests are welcome to watch, listen or take part.

In development

February 14 – March 28, 2027

Gatherings &
conversations.

A selection of gatherings we’re developing, with one main event each week and selected Sunday acoustic sessions. Final dates, formats and contributors are still being developed.

Gatherings

Food, film, music & listening

Proposed opening · February 14

Heartwood

A Valentine’s Day gathering

Acoustic music, poetry and a shared table to begin The Living Program. Come with someone you love, with friends, or on your own.

Shared meals

A Shabbat dinner with candle lighting, blessings and conversation. A seasonal foraging dinner with a chef and local forager sharing the stories behind the ingredients.

Music & listening

The Sunday Acoustic Series, live music made with plants and found instruments, and quieter sessions with nature soundscapes, sound baths or a guided meditation and group tarot pull.

Short film evenings

Films exploring nature, time, loss and renewal, followed by conversation with filmmakers and guests.

Conversations

Two guests & a host

Each conversation brings people from different fields together around a question they both care about. These are possible pairings, with room for disagreement and questions from the audience.

What is worth growing slowly?Forest ecologist + long-term investor

What needs time to grow, and how do we decide what is worth waiting for? A conversation about patience, the pressure for quick results, and what we build for people who come after us.

What counts as intelligence?AI researcher + plant ecologist

What do learning, memory and adaptation mean across machines and living systems? Where do those comparisons help us understand, and where do they break down?

Why does art move us?Neuroscientist + artist

What can studying the brain explain about being moved by art? What remains difficult to account for? An evening of conversation and close looking at the work around us.

How do we live with uncertainty?Oncologist + Buddhist teacher

Starting with the experience of cancer, a conversation about waiting for answers, making plans without guarantees, and how to keep living while so much remains unknown.

How does perception shape our reality?Psychedelic facilitator + artist

How can the same world look so different to different people? An artist and a psychedelic facilitator explore attention, memory, expectation and altered states, asking how we interpret what we experience and what helps us see familiar things anew.

See an evening you’d like to help shape?

Common themes

Nature and the work
are our common ground.

These themes connect the program. An artist and an investor might explore one in conversation; a chef and a musician might develop an evening together around another. We’re inviting contributors to shape these gatherings together.

Nature & belonging
Our relationship with the natural world, and our place within it.
Creation & destruction
How making and destroying are connected.
Life, loss & renewal
How loss and change affect the way we choose to live.
Material & meaning
The relationship between what we can touch and what we feel, remember or believe.

Contribute to one part of a gathering, or work with others on the whole event.

The invitation

Take part.

Speakers, collaborators
& sponsors

Speakers & contributors

Join a conversation, give a talk, offer a reading, perform, cook, or lead a session. You can suggest an idea of your own or develop one with other contributors.

A few sentences about your idea and yourself.

Available dates: February 14–March 21, and March 28, 2027. The gallery is unavailable March 22–27.

Your contact details are private and used to follow up about the program.

Sponsors

Discuss sponsorship

Help make an individual gathering or the wider program possible. We’re open to financial support and contributions such as food, tea, equipment or production help.

Why we’re here

Why we’re gathering

We’re creating The Living Program to celebrate life, bring different parts of San Francisco together, and give people time to connect through art.

Louise Ireland

In early February 2025, I was diagnosed with Stage III cancer. Over the following weeks, I experienced a complete ego death and came the closest I ever have to physical death. In that time of extreme emotion, sensory deprivation, and physical ailment, I was reawakened to life and my place in the world. Though my cancer later progressed to Stage IV, I am in remission now and have devoted myself to expressing all that I learned through my art.

This show, Materia, is my first gallery show and I’m honored to be part of this group of women wood artists. My art is centered around the themes of creation and destruction and the forest is both my inspiration and medium.

In pure coincidence, this show directly aligns with the timing of my diagnosis and first round of treatment.

“I wish to create this programming as a celebration of life, and am grateful for your willingness to be part of this.”
Louise Ireland beside her forest mural, installed at home
Louise with her work, at home. Photograph by Jenn Morse.

Program inquiries

Get in touch

Send the team a note about questions, collaborations or sponsorship.

Your message and contact details are private.