“For six months we’ve been wandering between two worlds. What gives you the right to cross?”
The loose-haired women have taken over the @kalwpublicmedia lobby, and they might not even leave until Saturday evening.
In this 77°F summery weather but Spring equinox, we invite you to step into the grove where Zarina met the enchanted army of those women that found themselves between the borders of the former Soviet Union, reclaiming who they are, and also trying to find themselves in-between the militaristic threats they face and the community they found in nature ✨
This immersive haunt is a labor of deep collaboration. I and Cuentero Productions want to say a special thank you to:
Aaron Wojack (@batwitchghost ): For building the physical world these spirits inhabit.
Leslie-Ann Woofter & Casey Leidig: And the whole @catranslation / @TwoLinesPress crew for their incredible support.
Sarah Coolidge: editor of the Calico Series and host for yesterday’s Q&A portion.
And especially to Sabrina Jaszi & Salomat Vafo: For the poetry, the tears of blood, and the creative bridges that brought this Uzbek prose masterpiece into our hands.
We have woven together visuals, sounds, and an experience for you to enjoy while we honor this haunting tale.
If you missed our packed launch party yesterday night, don’t fret, you have two more days to experience the haze where the living and the dead meet. Come hear the poems, see the military uniforms, and feel the venomous chill of the border.
🗓️ Open Friday & Saturday
🕚 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
📍 KALW Studio | 220 Montgomery St.
🎟️ FREE and open to the public
For now, I’ll kiss life’s eye 🥀
#CuenteroProductions #TwoLinesPress #KALW #SalomatVafo #BadWitchGhost
Bat Witch Ghost, Cuentero Productions, and the Center for the Art of Translation team up to create an artist-made haunted reading room built into the lobby of the KALW studio. This installation reinvents the classic ghost story, abandoning tired tropes to confront modern political horrors and blurring the lines between the living and the dead.
Inspired by the short story “The Loose-Haired Women” by Salomat Vafo, translated from the Uzbek by Sabrina Jaszi and published in I Was Alive Here Once: Ghost Stories by Two Lines Press, Sabrina Jaszi will read her translation of the story, followed by a conversation with Two Lines Press Calico Series Editor Sarah Coolidge. Tea and light snacks will be provided.
RSVP: /the-loose-haired-women-a-haunted-reading-room-at-kalw
Bay Area: You're invited to our haunted reading room to celebrate the launch of I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE: GHOST STORIES on Thursday March 19, 7 pm 👻
@batwitchghost , @cuenteroproductions , and the Center for the Art of Translation teamed up to create an artist-made haunted reading room built into the lobby of the @kalwpublicmedia studio on 220 Montgomery St. in downtown San Francisco.
📚️🎤 On March 19 at 7 PM, @sabrijasz will read her translation of “The Loose-Haired Women,” followed by a conversation with @twolinespress Calico Series Editor @s.coolidge .
Inspired by the short story “The Loose-Haired Women” by Salomat Vafo, translated from the Uzbek by Sabrina Jaszi and published in I WAS ALIVE HERE ONCE by Two Lines Press, this installation reinvents the classic ghost story, abandoning tired tropes to confront modern political horrors and blurring the lines between the living and the dead.
Link in bio to RSVP for the March 19 launch party. Complimentary snacks and beverages will be served.
*The Haunted Reading Room will also be open to the public March 19–March 21, 11:00 am–5:00 pm. If you miss the launch party, stop by Friday or Saturday to check out the installation.
Bat Witch Ghost is a grassroots arts organization building on the tradition of the American haunted house. We unite artists, neighbors, and local businesses in collaborative creation, artistic stimulation and neighborhood connection. We provide paid opportunities for artists and craftspeople to build space for community engagement using recycled and discarded materials whenever possible. Through a sustainable revenue model, we aim to become a lasting San Francisco tradition that celebrates the city’s creative spirit and love of costumed performance. Bat Witch Ghost demonstrates how community-driven art can be both financially viable and socially transformative by designing gathering spaces where creativity and community intersect.
BWG is an inspired combination of youthful visits to neighborhood haunts put on by Jaycees—a nationwide network of community organizations that created grassroots fundraising haunted houses throughout the 1970s and 80s—and slightly more mature visits to exhibitions by Cameron Jamie and Thomas Hirschhorn at the Walker Art Center and many many other interactions with artworks around the world. Through sustained involvement in the music, art, and public life of Minneapolis, New York City, and San Francisco, we developed a grassroots ideology centered on appreciation for the esoteric and bizarre. Our initial endeavor into haunts was in Minneapolis in 2011 when we built a haunt in the basement of the Soap Factory art gallery. It ran for many years and became a major source of funding for the gallery. After many years away, the itch returned and The Corridor of Horror was born—a three-day San Francisco installation that transformed an apartment building using salvaged cardboard, paper mache, minimal lumber, and basic electronics often purchased on used marketplaces. The project welcomed over 200 visitors and earned acclaim from KQED as “my favorite art experience of the year.” The enthusiasm for this event has motivated us to build on the momentum and attempt to create a self-sustaining organism that can live in San Francisco for years to come.
Holy moly, what a ride this is! Have you been missing us? We ghosted a while back to focus on, well... ghosting. But we’re back with some exciting announcements. Does this sound familiar? If so, thank you for reading all our posts. If not… Welcome!
We have secured a venue! (Details coming soon!)
But to the point of this post, we have lined up a roster of exceptional artists that will be creating our 2025 Haunt!
@oliverhawk & @alexisreikoyonan@b_b_press & Company
@abbaphone & @uncle.tuesday@123.fake.street & @goodknightyou@5k_candle@oldisthegrave & @sweetdave__
We can’t say how stoked we are about this! As always, thank you to everyone who has shown even the slightest enthusiasm, made donations, made referrals, and simply been a part of the greater Bay Area Arts community.
Love, Aaron & Anna
Abby @abbaphone Banks and Tuesday @uncle.tuesday Iverson are creating the first environment in the Haunt. They come to us through @MSPfoundation studio building. Abby is cornerstone of the artist community there and just a real solid person in our experience. Her interest in other artists practices and punk houses and DIY pinace brought me inquire about participating in The Haunt. Turns out she has witch experience as well. Abby invited Tuesday as a collaborator, and here were are with these two spectacular artists.
Anson Cyr (@b_b_press ) was introduced to us by one of our monsters. They met at the @SFartbookfair back in July. We had heard rumors of an artist who is just crazy about Halloween, so we went to find them. Turns out Anson had also heard about us and wanted to come to the Haunt last year, but he was busy with his own show at @adobebookshop . He turned it into a Spirit Halloween store. He was happy to be invited and has been enthusiastically planning and creating ever since. Shout out to Nancy Nino Feo @gluc.k , Joy Rubio @joy_murcielago_ , Apache O’Raspi @apacheoraspi , and Lauren Corden @lcor for their contributions in bringing Ansons vision to life. Oh shoot, I nearly forgot to mention Pumpkin, pictured above. Definitely has a paw in the project.
@oliverhawk & Alexis @reikoyonanstudio probably don’t need an introduction. If you have been to a few shows in the past 10 years or so, you’ll likely recognize work by Oliver and I bet you can see why we asked him to be a part of this. Coincidentally, I was surfing Instagram and saw Alexis’ profile (R.I.P.) and thought, this person looks like a good fit, I had not even realized that we had all just been hanging out at a @huntprojects open studio a few days prior. Do you believe in coincidence? It it not a coincidence that they have an eight track player with a disco ball in their apartment. We listened to Henry Mancini over pizza and a side of broccoli. Doggie was not allowed to have any. Yuki the dog (aka Stinky) was not allowed to have any, despite their interest.
Artist Team #3, if you go by order of appearance in the haunt. But we believe they are the final addition to the creative coven. So we’ll introduce them first. We met Jack @123.fake.street Graydon and Cortney @goodknightyou Knight for the first time when we went to talk haunt at their studio in Oakland. They came to us through a referral from another artist who couldn’t take on the commitment this year. We love referrals! The process of selecting artists has been a delightful game of telephone where we reach out to people, and if they can’t do it, we ask who they’d recommend. Our basic criteria is pretty simple: Do they have an active practice and seem like they’d be interested in this goofy idea? Do we have some sort of connection to them, or a reference that gives us credibility? Do they have the bandwidth for this?
Having been referred to Jack, we checked out his work and thought it was cool. We liked that he had recently moved back to the Bay Area after living in Portland and Brooklyn. He’s originally from Santa Rosa. It was a great chance to introduce new and old friends. It was easy to see how Jack and Courtney would fit into the haunt, especially because they dove right in with plans, ideas, and enthusiasm.
Ocean Escalanti (@oldisthegrave ) and Sweet Dave (@sweetdave__ ) are some of our merch wizards, meaning they did some illustrations for us that you will find on our swag, which we finally got and is now available at The Haunt! We first met Ocean through Delaplane gallery over on 14th (an early project by @vaticansnackbar & @appleappel ). She was in a show and we picked up a beautiful and spooky painting. It lives with us in the office and we often see Ocean and Dave out at openings and book fairs. A couple of real ones.
