Founded in 2008, SOMA Open Studios recently changed its name to South of Market Artists Coalition (SOMAC). It is a grass roots organization committed to expanding the arts community and consciousness in the South of Market neighborhood. Through promoting our artists we hope to inspire, nurture, educate and empower artists and their audiences, while enhancing the social and cultural diversity of this unique neighborhood. Our mission Is to foster community enrichment through the promotion of the arts and to educate the general public in what our artists have to offer. The artists of South of Market seek to create a dialogue between the the past and the present, in an environment that is responsive to the issues of modern, contemporary and experimental art, while being accessible to the public.

The South of Market district may be the most diverse neighborhood in a culturally diverse city. You can find practically anything you want in SOMA. South of Market is a huge district, sprawling from the Embarcadero to Eleventh Street, between Market and Townsend. Once known as “South of the Slot,” in reference to the cable car line down the center of Market Street, this “wrong side of the tracks” San Francisco neighborhood is a still evolving, often contradictory collection of urban spaces and experiences. The neighborhood is a patchwork of warehouses, swanky nightspots, art spaces, residential hotels, loft condominiums, furniture showrooms and the tenacious Internet companies that survived the tech market collapse.