Art
On Tuesday, author Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke at a screening of Marvel’s Black Panther in front of 250 high school students at Oakland’s Grand Lake. The action film, which stars a nearly all-black black cast and imagines an Afrofuturist world untouched by white supremacy and colonialism, had a record-breaking opening weekend.
To commemorate Black History Month, the news teams from Oakland North and our sibling site, Richmond Confidential, spent a morning observing some of the spaces in our two cities that have been important to the East Bay’s black community—past and present.
The children’s hip hop group attended the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in New York, where they were nominated for Best Children’s Album.
In Berkeley, the La Peña Cultural Center and the UC Berkeley Womxn of Color Initiative hosted an open mic night on January 26 called “Empowering Women of Color Open Mic.” The event opened a three-show series intended to provide a safe space for women of color to express themselves.
Doris Lilly took her time deciding between three different sets of croquet equipment. “This is vintage and it just cost me $15. I knew I would be able to find it here,” she said confidently, picking one set. Lilly grew up playing croquet with her family. Later she would play with friends, but it has been ten years since she played her beloved game. Now, she is enthusiastic to play again. “I can’t wait to play croquet with my son,”…
Skateboarder at DeFremery Park mentors young Oakland and Berkeley skateboarders
Artist Favianna Rodriguez is busy designing political posters and preparing to produce a large glass mural. A printmaker by trade, the mural will be the first time Rodriguez works wth glass. Ten minutes away, in a gallery in downtown Oakland, Natalia Mount spends her days guiding visitors through the current exhibition, which includes sculptures that move and emit loud sounds. The executive director of Pro Arts Gallery, Mount is eagerly planning new shows that toy with accepted notions of what is…
On a Friday night in East Oakland, Shoshana Zambryski-Stachel, founder and owner of ArtVale gallery, prepares for a monthly community potluck by arranging cheese wedges, dips, cut vegetables, and wine across two large tables at the back of the gallery. The air outside is crisp and cool, but the gallery is warm and well-lit, and will soon be filled with children and adults eating, drinking, and drawing together. A Bay Area native, Zambryski-Stachel opened ArtVale two years ago on Champion…
A prolific artist and activist, Favianna Rodriguez has been printmaking and designing murals for more than 20 years. The finalist of a public competition held by the San Francisco Arts Commission, Rodriguez’s next project will be installed at the Garfield Pool in San Francisco.