Six Months of Hi-Res First Thursdays
Wow, friends! What a beautiful six months it’s been since the launch of Hi-Res First Thursdays at San Diego Made. While we’re on holiday for August, taking in the San Diego sun and recharging for our next gathering on September 3, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what I’ve learned curating six events so far this year.
Building a space for stories
Hi-Res First Thursdays is a live storytelling series and, more broadly, an ongoing experimental art project powered by an independent collective of local artists, designers, and creatives. I developed the series as a sibling concept to “Hi-Res Magazine”, a biannual, bilingual publication I launched in 2024. Much like the printed pages of the magazine, the events bring to life the stories of multidisciplinary artists and creatives throughout San Diego and Tijuana, providing us with insight into the inner workings of the creative process while building a growing record of our independent art and creative culture.
Stories are truly the heart of the events. Every month I curate and coach three storytellers, who each share a short story on a theme that’s then paired with a visual slideshow. What I love about the live storytelling format in particular is that we go beyond simply showcasing a final product, project, or work of art; the goal of the stories is to retrace the journey it took to get there, from the questions and inquiry, to the challenges, lessons learned, and ideas for what’s next.
To complement the stories, our organizing collective designs a lively and joyful atmosphere that showcases the talent of even more artists, makers, and craftspeople: you walk in to the San Diego Made Factory and are immediately immersed in a curated set by resident DJ Destinee; you grab a fresh craft cocktail from Justin and Fran of Compagnia Creativa at the bar; then you freely roam the space to experience a selection of tabling artists and food pop-ups and peep the open studios of Factory tenants before our MC Kelsi welcomes you to gather round and ground down for the live storytelling segment.
The experience of slow media
Taken all together, I like to think of these gatherings as a form of slow media, a space where we can center ourselves offscreen to engage in an intentional visual experience. I find it’s a much more meaningful way to interact with and understand visual culture than scrolling the relentless feeds and algorithms of social platforms. Getting ourselves offline and in-person can also have a profound effect on our sense of self and our place in the world, and the Hi-Res First Thursdays series provides folks with an accessible way to participate in community and to find inspiration, all without the constant pressure to consume endlessly or buy things.
Curating is experimenting
For me, organizing and curating programming designed in this way for this creative community has been a real inflection point: a convergence of a decade of organizing with a lifelong love of stories and art, and a reminder of the deep well of generosity and love at the core of this community.
It’s also been an exercise in letting go. Creating space for the inner artist in me to experiment without a strategic plan, or having all the exact right answers to every question under the sun (perfectionism is a beast, y’all!)...all of this is an emergent lesson in trust, beginning with myself and radiating outward.
I want to point out that not having a strategic plan does not mean I’m without direction: it just means that I’m letting my lived experience, knowledge of this community, and artistic instinct guide my decision-making all while cultivating space for the collective to step forward and help shape what happens next. It means I’m prioritizing time to mentor, to coach, to create and curate in an open environment, and mostly, to experiment with what an independent arts space can do when we work together. And my goodness, we can do a lot!
The power of the collective
This series exists because of the dedication, trust, and kinetic energy of a growing crew of unbelievably generous people:
To Sarah, Sara, Gustavo, Brook, Dalton, and Dulce, who bring it all together behind-the-scenes. To Maya, for building our visual archive. To Justin and Fran, who keep our glasses full. To Destinee and Kelsi, who make the room feel so welcoming and lively. To Melanie, my kindred spirit in creative collaboration. To every storyteller, artist, maker, chef, DJ, and co-curator, who has trusted us with their work. To our in-kind sponsors San Diego Made, Craft Spirits, Bay City Brewing, and Strive Soda, who backed something you believed in before we had proof.
And to every single person who has walked through that roll-up door: thank you for showing up, for listening, and for being a part of this. We’re just getting started.
With that, I’ll see you at the next one on September 3 from 6-8pm at the San Diego Made Factory. Follow us at @hiresthemag and sign up for our newsletter below for announcements and updates.
Until then, keep making!
Stacey Edelstein is the founder of Hi-Res and the curator of Hi-Res First Thursdays at San Diego Made. Connect with her at @stacey_edelstein.
