Activism

Oakland Youth Lead Exhibit of Art by Attitudinal Healing Connection

Published

6 years ago

June 11, 2020

ArtEsteem’s 22nd Annual Art Exhibition, a youth-driven, 3D, multimedia online event of art, stories and video interviews will be on view from June 13-July 13, 2020, at www.ahcoakland.org.

ArtEsteem is the youth arts program of the Attitudinal Healing Connection.

Since 1995, ArtEsteem has fostered transformative healing through the arts for youth in West Oakland schools and throughout the Bay Area. “It takes time, care, hard work, and patience to change our communities and ourselves. It can’t just happen overnight,” said artist Asia Calhoun, whose painting graces the flyer and inspired the name of this year’s exhibition: Planting the Seeds of Change.

Calhoun is a student of ArtEsteem’s West Oakland Legacy & Leadership Project (WOLLP), a visual arts and environmental program that supports youth in developing powerful, educated voices for social and environmental justice.

Throughout the year, WOLLP youth work side by side with experienced artists, environmentalists, farmers and activists who support them in their journeys as young visionaries.

WOLLP used the curriculum from the book “Self As Super Hero,” by AHC’s executive director Amana Harris, to develop the fifth and last mural in the Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project.

The mural, to be completed in the summer of 2021, will be located in West Oakland at the I-580 underpass. It depicts characters that have powers to heal the social and environmental injustices they care about the most.

Each hero is a reflection of the student who created it. Together, the heroes offer their vision for a community guided by the values of justice, peace, and wellness. Among the issues addressed in the mural are air pollution, gun violence, drug abuse, defor “We are seeing young people rise up, communities organize, and history taking place” writes

WOLLP student and host of the exhibit Chosang Tenzin after attending the recent protest of George Floyd’s death and the many black lives ended by police that was led by Oakland Technical High School alumni.

To learn more about ArtEsteem programs, racial healing and Mindful Drumming circles by founders Aeeshah and Kokomon Clottey, and to see the new documentary film about their work to end racism, visit WWW.AHC-OAKLAND.ORG.

Chosang Tenzin is a WOLLP student and journalist and Neeka Salmasi is a WOLLP coordinator.