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San Francisco is a city on the edge. Geographically, of course, with its westward thrust and waterfronts; but in spirit, too, with a population of instigators and influencers who consistently keep this place at the vanguard.

The artists of San Francisco Art Institute are central to this environment of innovation. And the 2015 emerging artist exhibition, Edge Effect, at Pier 2 at Fort Mason Center, provides a distinct vantage point from which to imagine the possibilities for contemporary art.

In biological terms, “edge effect” is the occurrence of greater diversity in a transitional zone between two habitats or communities than in either of the adjacent ones. Held in a former military building inside the first urban National Park in the United States, Edge Effect marks the intersection of land and sea; of artist and audience; of the graduates’ time as SFAI students and their entry into the larger art world. As evidenced by the range and ambition of the works on view and in this catalogue, it has proved remarkably generative.

Edge Effect takes place at a time of shifting economic effects, as well, at the edge of vast technological and social changes. In San Francisco today, artists are struggling in the face of many challenges. Having long provided sustenance to the Bay Area art community and the creative process, SFAI is committed to helping its artists launch professional careers, and this capstone exhibition regularly results in gallery representation, new collectors, or invitations to show nationwide.

But equally impressive is the ingenuity and rebellious, can-do spirit of SFAI’s artists, who often go on not to existing or defined roles, but to newly imagined and self-made opportunities. For 144 years, this institution has fostered artists brave enough to venture beyond boundaries to discover uncharted artistic terrain—and to report back from the front lines. This last step is crucial, because to be an artist is to make new things and conceive new ideas, but it is also to share those insights with an audience, to engage in community and society at large: to have an impact upon others.

Not incidentally, Pier 2 at Fort Mason Center is the planned future home of SFAI’s graduate program. Edge Effect thus marks another phase in a living, thriving legacy, connecting SFAI’s artists to each other, the present to a continuum, and this institution to a larger ecosystem.

So to our new graduates, as you leave SFAI: Congratulations on your accomplishments, and send us a postcard from the leading edge.