Project Title: California Native
Recipient Organization: Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park
Lead Artist: Ene Osteraas-Constable
Genre and Date Awarded: Visual Arts, June 2004
To be Completed: Spring 2006

Ene Osteraas-Constable is collaborating with Holly Alonso and Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park to create “California Native,” a permanent art installation that brings alive the intertwined stories of the people and plants who were native to the Fruitvale District of Oakland.

The finished piece—developed through historical research, interviews, and photography—will be six sculptural installations featuring imagery and text and nestled among the plants in a new native plants garden at the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park. The sculptural forms will incorporate macro photographs, etched in stone or rendered in ceramic enamel. Accompanying text—in English and Braille—will provide a deeper understanding of how local American Indians relied on particular plants, and a multilingual booklet, in Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese—languages spoken by many in the surrounding community—will complement the sculptures.

The Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park is a grassroots nonprofit organization, formed in 1975 by residents of the Fruitvale District of Oakland. Fruitvale has the largest population of youth in the city and the least per capita open space. The Friends lobbied for state and local funding that enabled the City to establish a park, parcel by parcel, over the course of 22 years. The six-acre site, with the 1870 Antonio Peralta House, is the former headquarters of Rancho San Antonio, a 45,000-acre Spanish land grant given to Luis Peralta in 1820, considered the birthplace of Oakland. They are now developing permanent exhibits with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and transforming the landscape through state and local funding to evoke the site's history and to bring modern residents of many cultures together in shared activities and
understanding.

Today the park is at the heart of a diverse, low-income community with the largest Native American population in the San Francisco Bay Area that includes descendants of the original East Bay tribes.

The artwork created for the Native Plants garden will reflect the ecological knowledge of Native Californians that is just now being recovered. In doing so, the artist and organization intend to convey the living relationship of history to the present. Ene Osteraas-Constable is photographing American Indians—particularly members of the Ohlone tribe who were native to the Fruitvale area—and, with Holly Alonso, Executive Director of Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, interviewing them about their relationship to plants, land, and food. Their research also draws on information from historical texts from expeditions which detail native plant uses at the time of first contact.
For close to a decade, lead artist Ene Osteraas-Constable has been using photography to explore the interrelationship between people, food, and the land. For three years she documented the evolution of the Edible Schoolyard, a pioneering organic cooking and gardening program in Berkeley, founded by Alice Waters of Chez Panisse Restaurant. She went on to create “Family Roots,” funded by the Creative Work Fund, documenting the urban sustenance gardens of ten diverse students families, and integrating photographs, oral histories, and family recipes into an exhibition. More recently, she has been working on “Common Ground,” documenting different gardening practices of groups gardening on the grounds at Peralta Hacienda Historical Park. She also is a partner in the award-winning artist team of Wowhaus.

Ene Osteraas-Constable

Resume Highlights

• Recent photography commissions include “Common Ground,” an exhibition documenting the gardening traditions of Mien immigrants in Oakland, California
• Collaborator in the artist team of “Wowhaus,” Oakland, California, whose work includes installation art, environmental pieces, media, and architecture.  Recent projects include a series of ten 10’ x 12’ ceramic murals inspired by the ecosystem of the Calaveras River and “Market Street Live,” an audio portrait and self-guided tour of Market Street in San Francisco.  Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission, this temporary public art piece included micro radio broadcasts along Market Street.
• Instructor, Merrit College, developed and taught a “Cultural Gardening” course that focused on site visits to culturally diverse gardens in the Bay Area (2002)
• Artist-in-Residence at Grizedale Arts, England.  Worked with a community facing industry contraction and economic decline.  Residents actively participated in envisioning how to use an area that will be created when houses on two city blocks are demolished in the center of their community.  In addition to developing potential solutions, the project explored issues of hope and fear, community and individualism, and people’s desire for “a bit of green” in their community.  Documented the urban and rural gardening traditions of the region, creating a temporary installation at the Ambleside Flower Show (2001)

Selected Exhibitions and Commissions

• Emeryville Public Art Commission: Doyle Street Greenway (2005)
• Invitational Symposium, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in partnership with Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution,

Permanent Installation (fall 2004)

• “Life on Market Street: An Audio Archive,” temporary public art commission, San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco, California (2004)
• “Lost Space,” Exhibition, Phoenix Garden, London, England (2003)
• “Spirit of the Calaveras,” City of Stockton Public Art Program, Stockton, California, permanent installation (2003)
• Edible Schoolyard Dining Commons, permanent commission, Berkley, California (2003)
• “Grizedale Live” and “Ambleside Flower Show,” Exhibitions at Grizedale Arts, England (2002)
• “Hindpool Greening,” Barrow-in-Furness, Artist-in-Residence at Grizedale Arts, England (2002)
• “Treehouse: Shelter, Sanctuary, Stage,” permanent commission, Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, Cazenovia, New York (2002)
• “Utopia Now! (And Then),” Exhibition, Sonoma County Museum, Santa Rosa, California (2002)
• “Treenest,” permanent commission, Mark Dion & Morgan Puett, Beach Lake, Pennsylvania (2001)
• “Family Roots,” grant recipient and exhibit, Creative Work Fund, Berkeley, California (2001)
• “Chicago Decorative Arts,” exhibit, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois (2000)
• “Treenest,” permanent commission, Norma Schlessinger, Petaluma, California (2000)
• “Vantage Point,” permanent commission, Oakland, California (2000)
• Mural, Project YES!, (youth engaged in service), permanent commission, Oakland, California (1996)
• Halcyon Bench, permanent commission, Halcyon Commons (1996)
• Café Centro Piazza, permanent commission, San Francisco, California (1995)

Publications (Photography featured)

• Community Greening News
• Diablo Magazine
• Land & People
• San Francisco Chronicle
• San Jose Mercury News
• Sierra
• Timeline
• Utne Reader
• Hope’s Edge Web Site(Sequel to Diet for a Small Planet)
• Edible Schoolyard Web Site

Video and Multimedia

Wrote, directed, and produced media for nationally-distributed educational titles for the following: Purple Moon, McGraw Hill, and Paramount Publishing

Awards and Grants

• San Francisco Art Commission Market Street Art-in-Transit Commission (2004)
• Design Distinction Award: Environments, I.D. Magazine Annual Review (2002)
• Creative Work Fund Grant for Family Roots, a collaboration with The Edible Schoolyard

Experience

• Partner, Wowhaus, Oakland, California (1993-present) Partner in an art collaborative whose work encompasses installation art, public art, environmental design, and architecture.
• Faculty, Department of Landscape Horticulture, Merritt College, Oakland, California (2002) Designed and taught a “Cultural Gardening” course, leading students in visiting and documenting diverse vernacular gardens in the Bay Area as well as developing community garden projects. Created an archives of plants that are both edible and decorative, documenting the names and uses of plants in various languages; many of these plants are unusual, having been brought as seeds or cuttings by immigrants from their countries of origin. Used photographs and interviews to document site visits. Consulted on the development of a 30’ x 40’ permanent demonstration garden on the Merritt College campus that will feature many of the plants studied in the course.
• Co-chair, Secret Gardens of the East Bay Tour, Oakland, California (2003) Collaborated in the selection of ten outstanding gardens for the Bay Area’s premiere garden tour, attended by over 1,000 visitors annually. Selected experts who spoke on Butterfly Gardens, Drought-Resistant Gardens, and Small Garden Design.
• Program Coordinator, The Edible Schoolyard, Berkeley, California (1997-99) Managed a model program in which students plant and maintain a one-acre organic garden at a public middle school and cook the produce they have grown. Documented the evolution of the program through a photographic archives, established a volunteer program with more that 80 community volunteers, and assisted in grantwriting, curriculum development, and public relations.
• Producer, Paramount Publishing, McGraw Hill, Purple Moon, San Francisco, California (1992-97) Wrote, art-directed and produced video and content for various nationally-distributed multimedia titles. “Teen Health” laser disc involved interviews with more than 300 Bay Area students and the “Secret Paths in the Forest” title featured folk stories from around the world.
• United States Peace Corps Volunteer, Togo, West Africa (1990-91)
• Director, “Artreach,” Art Institute of Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York (1988-89)
• Intern, The Public Art Fund,” New York, New York (1987)