Muralist Desi Mundo has been collaborating with The Greenlining Institute and Oakland community members to create a new mural, celebrating the convergence between the practice of arts and movements for social justice in Oakland. Painting at the 90′ tall site began in May of this year, and the artist and his community partners have been waiting for COVID-19 restrictions to ease in order to launch and celebrate it. Three other artists — Dave Young Kim, Marina Wong, and Rachel Wolfe — assisted with the painting.
The long-awaited celebration and mural dedication is taking place on October 16, 2-4 p.m., at 360 14th Street in downtown Oakland. The event is free, but reservations and masks are required.
In addition to support from the Creative Work Fund, the new mural is funded in part by a community benefit contribution made by Bay Development, a real estate company whose tower is blocking a popular and massive Universal Language mural on Alice Street that was tribute to Oakland artists. The new painting depicts some of the culture-makers who appeared in the earlier mural, along with new subjects and themes, including a few scenes of the protest movement that sprang up in 2015 to resist the erasure of the mural on Alice Street.
The mural covers one side of the headquarters of the Greenlining Institute — an organization founded to combat racist redlining and economic marginalization, and the painting features a red line woven among train tracks to symbolize Oakland’s early years as a railroad terminus and the exploitation and exclusion of Black, Chinese, and other people of color who built California.
Photo of AscenDance in process by Eric Arnold