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CRP’s Desi Mundo Returns to Chicago for Two-Week Residency at Hyde Park Art Center

It’s been said you can’t go back home again. For Community Rejuvenation Project founder and Executive Director Desi Mundo, however, that wasn’t exactly the case. After 14 years of living in Oakland, where he founded CRP — which has become the city’s most prolific producers of public murals — Mundo returned to Chicago, the city he first learned the aerosol arts in, for a two-week residency at Hyde Park Art Center, which happened to be celebrating its 75th anniversary. In…

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CRP x StopWaste.org x Melrose Leadership Academy mural raises awareness about composting

Did you know composting food waste is one of the easiest and most effective ways of recycling? According to Stopwaste.org, food scraps and food-soiled paper – paper plates, pizza boxes, and paper napkins – comprise the largest portion of the waste stream. Such scraps represent 35% of all waste in Alameda County. While removing harmful toxic waste and hazardous household waste is more complicated and may require safety precautions, recycling food scraps by sending them to a composting facility allows…

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Nova Scotia Discovers the Solution!

Halifax property owners have discovered a solution for their vandalism problems. Instead of chasing away the youth at night, they are encouraging higher quality works on their space during the day. What they have discovered is that most young writers simply want to express themselves. Given legitimate forums and encouragement, they focus on developing themselves and their style and they create masterpieces. According to the youth, blank walls are a target. But high quality murals and masterpieces invoke respect. Its…

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Gardena and the Inflatable Felony

This is the first of a three part series by the Community Rejuvenation Project on the perpetual criminalization of aerosol culture, the abatement industry and the politics of incarceration. We begin with the problematic issue of “charge stacking,” which occurs when a prosecutor increases the severity of a charge or adds additional charges to an arrest to add leverage when making a plea agreement. This phenomenon was documented in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow in relation to the drug…

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Street Art vs. Gang Injunctions

This is the third in a three part series by the Community Rejuvenation Project on the perpetual criminalization of aerosol culture, the abatement industry and the politics of incarceration. In the last two articles, we address the inflated penalties and intense criminalization of the aerosol movement. This is further demonstrated in the article below. MTA crew has been targeted with the first ever gang injunction against a writing crew, apparently in response to a huge “blockbuster” painted on the walls…

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Los Angeles’ War on Aerosol Writers

This is the second of a three part series by the Community Rejuvenation Project on the perpetual criminalization of aerosol culture, the abatement industry and the politics of incarceration.  In the first article, we addressed the methods that law enforcement uses to inflate vandalism charges, pressure them into plea bargains and then cash in with exorbitant fines and fees. In this article, we address the prison industrial complex and the realities faced by everyday youth swept up into this system through…

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ASU unveils 6th mural in civil rights series

This story really touched our intern, Jordynn. “Reading this story sparked a lot in me because it stands for something many people in our city believe in. Being that CRP is located in Oakland we want to show all different aspect of political murals from different backgrounds to express what we stand for.” Indeed, murals have the power to tell our history, honor our heroes, and acknowledge things in our past that are left out of our school history books.…

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“Milkin’ It” video featuring CRP selected for multiple film fests!

Oakland, and particularly East Oakland, is the backdrop for British superstars Cornershop’s video “Milkin’ It.” Filmed by Astrid Edwards, the video includes numerous murals by the Community Rejuvenation Project, including “Peace and Dignity,” “Black and Brown Unity,” and “Sprout” on 83rd and MacArthur. It also features numerous other Oakland writers in shots from infamous 23rd yard. The video was recently selected for International Film Festival of Antigua & Barbuda and Indie Fest in the US! Good luck, Astrid!  

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The Living Walls Controversy and the Build-Up of Bureaucracy

CRP has been following the Living Walls controversy in Atlanta’s Pittsburgh neighborhood closely. The article below illustrates the lasting impact that this melee is going to leave. One of the areas that Living Walls excelled at was navigating the city’s bureaucratic red tape. At least three city agencies signed off on the project. Nonetheless, as we reported earlier, Atlanta city officials are still considering removing the mural because additional hazy, permissions may have been legally required. These legal requirements have…

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Kansas City & Oakland: A Tale of Two Policies

On the surface, Kansas City’s new “graffiti” program is nothing new. But its simple initiatives are far more progressive than Oakland’s recent proposal, which is focussed almost entirely on increasing the financial burden on youth caught for vandalism and their families. Kansas City is passing out paint to community members who want to cover-up unwanted writing themselves. While there are some inherent issues with supporting vigilante buffing (see what just happened in Atlanta), and the potential for legitimate artwork to…

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