Community Panel Selects Six Finalists for the Phoenix Public Art Project with BAMP 

EBALDC and the Bay Area Mural Program (BAMP) are happy to announce the selection of six (6) artists to advance to the RFP stage of the BAMP/Phoenix Public Art Project (Taylor Smalls, Zoë Boston, Timothy Bluitt, Tracy Williams, Shogun Shido, and Jedrek Speer) based on the recommendations of, and discussion with, affordable housing residents, community stakeholders, and representatives from community groups in West Oakland.

As part of EBALDC’s Healthy Neighborhoods approach to community development, which focuses on creating safe and stable affordable housing options, improving income and wealth opportunities in traditionally underserved communities, building resident and community engagement, and developing strategic partnerships, the BAMP/Phoenix Art Project targets local West Oakland artists to design and create large-scale community-engaged art at The Phoenix, a new affordable, permanent supportive housing development coming to West Oakland’s Prescott neighborhood.

During the qualifications review session, the stakeholder group reviewed and discussed the applications and artist portfolios. RFQ review criteria included artistic excellence, capacity to be a good collaborator with local West Oakland residents and stakeholders, connection to and investment in West Oakland neighborhoods, impact of opportunity for BAMP mentorship on artists’ creative journey, with priority to BIPOC and under-represented artists. In a discussion facilitated by Phoenix project lead artist-mentor (and BAMP founder) Andre Jones and EBALDC’s Associate Director of Creative Community Development (CCD), Annie Ledbury, the stakeholder group reviewed each of the artists’ submitted work with a goal of getting as close to consensus as possible. Other Project Team members present included EBALDC’s Raine Robichaud, David Chen, and Alejandro Pineda; Andre Jones of BAMP and Tone Oliver of Tone Oliver Productions. Also present and not voting were Kristin Zaremba (City of Oakland Cultural Affairs Department) and Donna Inscho Brinkman (7^th West Business Owner).

Comments Annie: “The Phoenix public art process, one of EBALDC’s newest Creative Community Development (CCD) projects, offers a unique opportunity to incorporate all of our Healthy Neighborhoods strategies into one project that strengthens new affordable housing with pathways to create income and career mentoring opportunities for local artists, builds connections between residents, businesses, and nonprofit organizations, and deeply engages community members in the creation of a new cultural landmark.” 

After the selection of the six artist finalists, Marcus Johnson, Chair of the Prescott Neighborhood Council and member of the Phoenix stakeholder committee, offered his historical expertise to support grounding the art proposals in the rich history of the place. Information Johnson shared included stories about influential historical figures and neighborhood arts and culture.

Each artist will now have to devise and submit a full proposal for their proposed art project. Each artist will have an opportunity to meet with Andre Jones at least once for a mentoring session on public art design and production. Full proposals are due from the 6 selected finalists at the end of November. In December, the stakeholder group will meet one last time to select and award the winner(s) of the RFP.

For more information about the earlier stage of the EBALDC and BAMP Phoenix project, read more here.

Creative Community Development (CCD) informs EBALDC’s Healthy Neighborhoods approach and our participation in Oakland-based multi-stakeholder collaboratives in East Oakland, West Oakland, and Chinatown. Our CCD team has extensive experience convening local communities and diverse stakeholders such as residents, businesses, community partners, and public/government agencies in community engagement projects. We know from working in these communities the deep impact that art and creative programs have in uplifting and empowering community members (youth, adults, residents and staff) to engage with and improve their neighborhoods.