GIA Blog

Nia King, the third of our Oakland Conference bloggers, covered the preconference After Ghost Ship: Supporting artist-led solutions to equitable and accessible space development on Sunday, October 21. Here she opens her reporting from the preconference:

The After Ghost Ship panel was organized by Claudia Leung, outgoing senior program associate at the San Francisco Arts Commission. She began the panel by giving a shout out to Nadia Elokdah (Deputy Director at Grantmakers in the Arts) for all her hard work moving the conference at the last minute. The conference was originally set to take place at the Oakland Marriott, but since Marriott workers are on strike nation-wide, the conference had to be moved at the eleventh hour. Claudia then introduced the panelists: Katherin Canton of Oakland Creative Neighborhoods Coalition and Emerging Arts Professionals SF/Bay Area, David Keenan of DIY Safer Spaces, Devi Peacock of Peacock Rebellion and the Liberate 23rd Ave Collective, Eric Arnold of the Oakland Creative Neighborhoods Coalition and Black Arts Movement District Community Development Corporation and moderator, journalist Chris Zaldua.

I had the privilege of attending GIA’s Preconference After Ghost Ship: Supporting Artist-led Solutions to Equitable and Accessible Space Development on Sunday, October 21. While I am not an Oakland native, I have been living here ten years and feel increasingly protective of the city. Living in a rapidly gentrifying city makes you weary of change and suspicious of newcomers. At first, I didn’t really understand why GIA chose Oakland as the site for this conference on “Race, Space, and Place.” Oakland really is a unique place; unique because of its diversity, radical political history, and extremely high concentration of artists. What lessons could Oakland teach other cities when there’s no-one-size-fits-all approach to stopping displacement?

Lara Davis reports from day 2 and day 3 of the Oakland conference:

I got up at 6:00 AM on the final day of the conference to attend a 7:30 AM session (ouch!) on Impact Investing in the Creative Economy. For most of us in the room, impacting investing was a newer concept. We were eager to learn about the diversity of resources available to build and sustain art-making endeavors through both philanthropic and investment opportunities.

Blogger Tram Nguyen offers some of her initial takeaways following the 2018 GIA Conference in Oakland, California:

I got up at 6:00 AM on the final day of the conference to attend a 7:30 AM session (ouch!) on Impact Investing in the Creative Economy.  For most of us in the room, impacting investing was a newer concept. We were eager to learn about the diversity of resources available to build and sustain art-making endeavors through both philanthropic and investment opportunities.

Blogger Lara Davis reports on day one (Monday) at the GIA Conference in Oakland

Today’s post focuses primarily on young people and the arts, and artists, with a little bit of, well, everything that’s inspiring me.

My first GIA conference is over, and I am so glad for the opportunity to be part of this one, focused on Race, Space, and Place, taking place in my adopted hometown of Oakland, California. Overwhelmingly, what I’ve taken away is a sense of optimism and excitement at the new discovery (for me) of such a vibrant and dynamic world of arts and culture strategists, funders, creators, workers, wonks, and change agents committed to social justice. I’ve been poring over Oakland’s Cultural Development Plan in my spare time since the conference, and found its guiding vision to be so profound: Equity is the driving force. Culture is the frame. Belonging is the goal.

GIA Conference blogger Lara Davis turns in her initial notes on the 2018 GIA Conference in Oakland, California.

When I walk the streets of downtown Oakland to attend various conference sessions, I think of Angela Davis who wrote about art on the frontlines, cultural organizing at the intersection of art and activism – people’s art as she deemed it, as exemplified by struggles for Black liberation which have always been steeped in musical, artistic, and cultural narratives.

GIA Conference Blogger Tram Nguyen reports from the preconference, Culture at the Intersection of Race, Space, and Place, that took place on Sunday, October 21, in Oakland, California.