The Next Installment of...
The Last Supper Party

The Last Supper Party Performance Series
The Last Supper Party is a spoken word and performance series inspired by Fe Bongolan’s landmark painting of the same name; a 200 sq. ft. canvas that defines our Sutter Street office and live arts venue.

The Last Supper Party presents the voices of diverse artists and writers who call out the myriad injustices and impacts of corruption, unchecked power and greed.

We invite our audience to share ideas and bread and find inspiration in the thoughts and words of artists whose perspectives are drawn from a kaleidoscope of cultures. But who are united by compassion and a common desire to seek justice, equity and truth.

The Story of The Last Supper Party Painting
“1985. Ronald Reagan was still President. The global movement to end apartheid and free Nelson Mandela from Robben Island Prison was underway. In San Francisco homelessness was ramping up. The AIDS pandemic was taking down swaths of our city’s population: friends, family, and co-workers. Yet a whole other world of class and wealth did nothing while the rest of our world was in trouble. Sitting in my studio in an Inverness cabin, I stayed with my paints and let something happen. It was there that I found my artist’s voice to not attack directly, but to let the exposure of that apathy – bred by a society that embraced greed over humanity—do the work.

Thirty six years later, with all that has changed and not changed, it is painfully unsurprising that this painting still shouts.”

~ Fe Bongolan

About the Artists

Zara Jamshed
Zara Jamshed is a queer, trans, disabled Pakistani-American poet originally from New York City and now living in Oakland, California. Their debut full-length poetry collection Neither Created Nor Destroyed was a finalist for the Stories Award for Poetry, a semifinalist for the Pamet River Prize, and is available now with Game Over Books. Zara is a Periplus Collective fellow and has had their work supported by Anaphora Arts, Asian American Writer's Workshop, Open Mouth Literary, Queer Ancestors Project, Still Here SF, Sundress Academy for the Arts, THEYFRIEND, and VONA. Putting their engineering degree to use, they currently work to bring the economic and environmental benefits of solar energy to California's low-income renters.

Cassandra Rockwood Ghanem
Cassandra Rockwood Ghanem is a writer, artist, educator, and activist. She is a visionary and key contributor to arts and social justice initiatives in the Bay Area and beyond. Her first poetry collection is “Hot Thicket” with Black Lawrence Press. She writes about generational trauma and resilience, her Lebanese and Arab American identity, and many of her works shed light on systemic inequities like gender-based violence and poverty. Cassandra illustrated “Basho’s Haiku Journeys” a children’s picture book about the Edo period poet Matsuo Basho. She holds a BA from California Institute of Integral Studies and MFA from California College of the Arts.

Kimi Sugioka (Curator)
Kimi Sugioka is a poet, songwriter, and educator. She is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda, a post that includes creating platforms for the presentation of a diverse variety of poets and spoken-word artists. Kimi also performs her own work frequently throughout the Bay Area. Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and raised in Berkeley, California, Kimi has worked in public education for decades, and earned her BA from San Francisco State University and MFA from the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Fe Bongolan (Creator of The Last Supper Party Painting)
Fe Bongolan is a Bay Area visual and performing artist. She is an alumnae of San Francisco State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Crafts and Design. She found theater arts in her last year at SFSU, and to this day it consumes her life. After working as an actress with Asian American Theater Company and Teatro Campesino, in 1992 she began work with the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women, immediately involved as an artist from the community working alongside Rhodessa Jones in helping women inmates from San Francisco County Jail write their stories for performance. In 28 years with the Medea Project, Fe developed as actor, writer, dramaturge and assistant director to Rhodessa, helping inmates and ex-offenders find their voice and develop their writing for performance in jail, the community and main stage.