Executive Director

Josette Melchor is the Executive Director of Gray Area Foundation For The Arts, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture. By funding and curating projects that offer insightful perspective on the information of our age, using the technologies of our time: GAFFTA provides a means to decode and humanize the evolving global database. GAFFTA’s direction is influenced by Melchor’s previous projects Gray Area Gallery (2005–2008) and Gray Area Beacon, a new media arts program that she founded in 2008 with Silicon Valley Executive Peter Hirshberg. She has facilitated many large- and small-scale events up and down the west coast including notable pioneering media artists.

Melchor’s professional experience in technology undoubtedly feeds her business-savvy, but it’s the use of technology to comment on and enable our society that drives her creative leadership of this organization. Her professional philosophy of a full-hearted commitment to the arts is apparent in the community she’s developed thus far. Her personal connection with clients, artists, and patrons reverberates throughout the organization and provides an unshakeable strength in foundation.

GAFFTA is deeply involved with the city of San Francisco, acting as a spearhead for the city’s initiative to revitalize the Tenderloin district through the transformative power of art. Melchor’s currently concentrating on the development of the new space at 55 Taylor in San Francisco.