Artists’ Television Access is a San Francisco-based, artist-run, non-profit organization that cultivates and promotes culturally-aware, underground media and experimental art. Since 1985 we have provided an accessible screening venue and gallery for the presentation of programmed and guest-curated screenings, exhibitions, performances, workshops and events. We believe in fostering a supportive community for the exhibition of innovative art and the exchange of non-conformist ideas.
Where to find us
Artists’ Television Access
992 Valencia Street (at 21st)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 824-3890
ata@atasite.org
Our History
In the early 1980s, friends John Martin and Marshall Weber opened the Martin/Weber Gallery at 220 Eighth Street in SF’s SoMa District. In October of 1983, Lise Swenson, Martin, Weber, and several other media artists and individuals started organizing to convert the commercial venture to a non-profit organization. Although Artists’ Television Access (ATA) later expanded its scope and mission, ATA began as a television production facility where the public could create their own content for broadcast on Artists’ Television, ATA‘s local cable television program. ATA launched programming in 1984 and received tax-exempt status in 1985.
On Halloween night in 1986, a fire left ATA’s SoMa space uninhabitable, so ATA briefly relocated to an artists’ warehouse on Clarion Alley in SF’s Mission District. ATA then moved to its current space at 992 Valencia Street in early 1987, and they had their first show in the new space on April 28, 1987.