Betti Ono Gallery in the heart of downtown Oakland is showing the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s (A[E]MP’s) “Oakland Community Power Map,” part of its Creative Work Fund-supported project to map and gather stories of evictions in Alameda County. Lead artist Erin McElroy (co-founder of the A[E]MP), a robust group of volunteers, and the nonprofit Tenants Together are working together and with East Bay rent boards and nonprofits to map the rise in evictions in Oakland, Fremont, Alameda, and Berkeley.
The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project has been mapping housing trends and in Bay Area cities since 2013, when it started with San Francisco’s data. The installation at Betti Ono Gallery represents new geographic territory for the project. As quoted in the April 13 East Bay Express, McElroy notes, “Stories of Oakland, Fremont, and the City of Alameda can’t be conflated with stories of San Francisco.”
While McElroy and volunteers focus on collecting and sharing the mapping data, Carla Wojczuk and other volunteers have been gathering oral history and video components for the map.
Pictured: Carla Wojczuk and Erin McElroy