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Sue Mark of marksearch (composed of Sue Mark and L. Bruce Douglas) are collaborating with Advaita Society (Kala Art Institute) and the Golden Gate Branch of the Oakland Public Library on Commons Archive, reflections of a North Oakland neighborhood in transition. The project invites community members to contribute and annotate materials that illustrate neighborhood history.

This project builds on Mark’s 2013 relationship with Kala and the Golden Gate Library, in which she began amassing neighborhood materials and interviews through Kala’s Print Public program. Now she and Kala will develop a neighborhood Archive Council to expand, shape, and sustain the project. Mark will create a mobile unit to foster further participation and, with the Council’s guidance, will organize community-led workshops. Installations of collected materials at the library will include projections onto its exterior. Further plans involve a lending process for archival materials, an online project site, and a structure for the archive’s long-term development.

Sue Mark engages people in collaborative expressions of local history as a way to deepen bonds between people and their environments. Kala Art Institute is a community art-making hub and residency program that offers artists professional print and digital media facilities to sustain their creative work and engages the community through exhibitions, public programs, and education.

Image from an earlier marksearch project “Finding Klinkner”