OMCA at 50: Exploring Public Art Practices

 
 

OMCA at 50: Exploring Public Art Practices at the Oakland Museum of California

OMCA at 50: Exploring Public Art Practices is a symposium in partnership between the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA). This was a day-long event that featured local and national artists who inspired the audience through conversation, movement, and performance. The artists and their work reinforced our belief in the power of art in the public realm.

Valdez conceptualized, curated, and executed this symposium, which also was part of OMCA’s 50th anniversary. For this symposium, rather than centralizing the discussion in a theater, she wanted the artists to make and share in public spaces as part of the symposium’s focus on public art practice. She decentralized the events through a series of two identical back-to-back breakout sessions. Artists occupied areas across the seven-acre campus, transforming them into intimate artist studios where both Museum visitors and symposium guests gathered.

The keynote speakers weres Mike Blockstein and Reanne Estrada, co-founders of Los Angeles-based creative studio for civic engagement, Public Matters, and our host for the day was Liz Ogbu, designer and spatial justice activist. The breakout session artists include: Rafa Esparza (Los Angeles); Medea Project (San Francisco); Rachel McCrafty (San Francisco); Sergio De La Torre and Chris Treggiari (Oakland/San Francisco); De Nichols (St. Louis, MO); Szu-Han Ho (Albuquerque, NM), and commissioned site-specific dance performance by Kristin Damrow & Company (San Francisco).

The program supported local community vendors such as Black-owned Oakland coffee roaster Red Bay Coffee and Mamacitas Café + Catering, a women-owned and operated, mission-driven catering business (unfortunately closed due to Covid-19). The program also amplified the work Art Practical, an online Bay Area-based magazine, and to share their newest publication, which was also done in partnership with the Rainin Foundation. The post-program celebration with the participants culminated at the restaurant Kingston 11, a Jamaican restaurant in Oakland.

 

OMCA at 50 Exploring Public Art Practices - Highlight Reel