Our Creative Summit was held on Saturday, March 26, 2022 at the Rainbow Recreation Center. This event brought together resident leaders and creatives from collaboratives in East Oakland, West Oakland, and Oakland's Chinatown. Highlights included performances by East Oakland Destiny Arts Center students, food provided by Sweet Fingers Jamaican, and a raffle for a $100 gift card and two new youth bikes from Transform and EBALDC’s Lion’s Pride Youth Program.
Featured Program
Participants gathered to share their inspiring community projects and lessons learned. Resident leaders, artists and culture-bearers, and creative community developers discussed how they’ve worked to create healthy neighborhoods in Oakland.
Creative Power Talk
How can arts, culture, and creativity push for lasting systems change? What can we do as community to organize and advocate for the neighborhoods we want to see?
Featuring Alternier Cook, Oakland Public Library Commissioner and Chair of the Friends of the Hoover Durant Public Library, and Lauryn Marshall, artist and youth facilitator from Civic Design Studio, and the debut of the resident leadership video storytelling series “Creative Power” by Ivy Chen of ICVZNZ Studios.
Art + Food Systems Talk
A discussion between East Oakland resident leader Keisha Henderson, artist entrepreneur ChiChai Mateo, and Hilary Bass from the Dig Deep Farms Food Hub featuring lessons learned from how food justice and art can uplift our communities.
Other Event Highlights
Featuring free books from the Friends of the Hoover Durant Public Library’s Streetcorner Library, community resource tables, a mini-grants how-to table from Keep Oakland Beautiful, and Healthy Havenscourt Collaborative. A roundtable discussion on how to measure the impact of resident-led creative projects was led by Jessie Huang. Destiny Arts Center students from Edna Brewer and Elmhurst United kept our energy up with inspiring dance performances with the support of teaching artist Samara Atkins.
Project gallery
Interactive display of creative mini-projects completed by residents, partner organizations, and local creatives since 2015 in East Oakland, West Oakland, and Oakland’s Chinatown
And featuring performances by young East Oakland Artists from Destiny Arts Center
Lunch was provided by Sweet Fingers Jamaican Food