Topic: Art and Social Practice

Senseofplace LAB presents “Converting Oakland’s Waste into Dialogue...”, a project and exhibition that opened last Friday, December 6^th at Uptown Body & Fender event space for this month’s Oakland Art Murmur. The show includes work by five artists: Alicia Escott, Jeff Hantman, Brian King, Githingi Mbire and Laurie Halsey Brown, who were each invited to create a piece using discarded materials found in Oakland.  They were asked the question, “Does Oakland’s ‘sense of place,’ include massive amounts of unwanted materials left in public spaces?”  The project resulted in a series of works specific to Oakland and it’s history such as Jeff Hantman’s sculpture made from a found couch that references the extinct East Bay transit system, the Key System, and Brian King’s video triptych including footage of the iconic shipping container cranes at the Port of Oakland.

Founded by Laurie Halsey Brown in San Francisco in 2008, 'Senseofplace LAB is an artistic laboratory that develops projects/works, which heighten a ‘sense of place.’ The projects are created for many audiences either within an art context or as temporary public works created in collaboration with communities. Read more about the Oakland Waste project on the Senseofplace LAB website: senseofplacelab.org