Oakland Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Community Rejuvenation Project

Alice Street Mural Project Report-Back

July 17, 2014

After a little more than a week of painting the wall at 14th and Alice, CRP is pleased to report the wall is nearing completion. This project has been a real eye-opener; the level of interaction we’ve had with the community has been unprecedented. It’s not an exaggeration to say the mural has started to become a magnet for community-building, even before it’s completed. The project started with covering the entire wall—covered with unsightly and highly unartistic graffiti tags–with…

The Community Rejuvenation Project Announces the Alice Street Mural Project – Phase I

July 7, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates

For Immediate Release: July 8, 2014 (Oakland, CA) — The Community Rejuvenation Project, an Oakland-based non-profit organization specializing in community murals, proudly announces Phase I of the Alice Street Mural Project, which runs from July 2 -Aug 3rd, 2014. This mural project will encompass painting three large walls surrounding the parking lot at 1401 Alice Street (opposite the Malonga Casquelord Center and facing the historic Hotel Oakland.) The walls cover an approximate surface area of 2500 ft., and have…

South Shore Mural a Shining Beacon in Chicago’s Sea of Bureaucracy and Brown Paint

June 20, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates

Chicago, Illinois, is a city with a deep division over public art. A case in point: The city’s controversial “Graffiti Blasters” abatement program, which for the past 21 years has criminalized street artists and muralists, by linking aerosol expression of any kind with gang violence. Introduced in 1993, the same year as the classic hip-hop albums “Midnight Marauders” and “93 Til Infinity,” Graffiti Blasters – the name sounds like a lightweight racist take on the term “ghetto blaster” – became…

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

June 2, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates

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…

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

April 28, 2014

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CRP Blog & Updates

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…

CRP Statement on Oakland’s Proposed Anti-Graffiti Ordinance

December 4, 2012

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CRP Blog & Updates, Op-Eds

On November 2—just four days before the election—City Attorney Barbara Parker and Councilmember Nancy Nadel released a proposed amendment to Oakland’s municipal code which targeted graffiti vandals. Under the proposed ordinance— whose impetus reportedly came as a result of “Occupy”-style protests—graffiti would be classified a “public nuisance” and offenders charged with misdemeanors, rather than citations. The ordinance also calls for increased penalties—including fines as high as $750 per infraction—makes parents liable for damages caused by underage offenders, requires business and…

Gardena and the Inflatable Felony

November 23, 2012

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CRP Blog & Updates, Op-Eds

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…