Important Parking Notification for Students and Visitors to Richmond Art Center during RPAL’s Juneteenth Carnival
Set-Up through Deinstall: Tuesday, June 13 – Monday, June 19
Carnival Dates: Friday, June 16 – Sunday, June 18
Starting Tuesday, June 13 through Monday, June 19 the City parking lot opposite Richmond Art Center (on the 400 block of 25th Street between Barrett and Nevin Avenues) will be reserved for the Juneteenth Carnival being sponsored by the Richmond Police Activities League.
PARKING OPTIONS:
The Civic Center parking lot at Richmond Art Center’s 25th Street entrance is open, visitors can enter from Nevin Avenue only, as 25th Street is closed to traffic
There are City parking lots adjacent to 1st Northern California Credit Union or across from Richmond Library (these may get crowded)
Residential street parking on the other side of Barrett Avenue from RAC might be the best option (RPAL has informed us that during the Carnival 2-hour street parking limits will not be enforced)
Lastly, we encourage visitors to RAC to take public transportation, car pool or use a ride share service
For information about the Juneteenth Carnival Celebration call Richmond PAL at 510-621-1221 or visit their website at www.rpal.org
WCCUSD Student Artwork Displayed in Mayor Martinez’s Office
Congrats to the students who received Artistic Achievement Awards in the WCCUSD Student Show!! These artists will have their artworks on display in Richmond Mayor Eduardo Martinez’s office at Civic Center Plaza until September 17.
Artistic Achievement Awards: Jasmin Alfaro Capybara, Pinole Valley High School; Mario Lopez, Richmond High School; Isabel Gil, Pinole Valley High School; Ivy Hu, De Anza High School; Shahzain Malik, Mira Vista School; Olivia Elices, Fred Korematsu Middle School; Madison Wyatt, Fred Korematsu Middle School; Anya Troll, El Cerrito High School; Andrea Zavala Cruces, El Cerrito High School; Ashley Mejia, Kennedy High School
Madison Wyatt, Fred Korematsu Middle School Anya Troll, El Cerrito High SchoolShahzain Malik, Mira Vista SchoolIsabel Gil, Pinole Valley High SchoolAshley Mejia, Kennedy High SchoolOlivia Elices, Fred Korematsu Middle SchoolJasmin Alfaro Capybara, Pinole Valley High SchoolAndrea Zavala Cruces, El Cerrito High School Ivy Hu, De Anza High SchoolMario Lopez, Richmond High School
Oil giant Chevron has acknowledged that it removed an art installation from a fence surrounding its refinery in Richmond, California, near San Francisco.
The piece, installed on Earth Day (April 22), consisted of brightly painted slats placed on the fence around the oil refinery. Neighborhood residents were invited to inscribe messages and stories on the slats as a way of documenting the local petroleum industry’s health and environmental impacts, and form “a collective monument to resistance.” The slats were painted with messages such as “clean energy now.”
“Our fences and other company facilities are functional equipment and we cannot allow tampering or unauthorized construction,” Chevron spokesman Ross Allen told Artnet News in an email.
Organizers of the art project argue that the portions of the fence they used are owned by the city and that they received permission from Richmond’s Public Arts and Culture Commission, the City of Richmond’s Love Your Block program and Public Works Department, and Contra Costa County’s North Richmond Municipal Advisory Committee to install the work. The removal, they said, was “an attempt to silence our voices and erase our stories.”
The work was the subject of an exhibition at Richmond Art Center that ran from April 5 to June 3.
Chevron claims that the fence is the company’s private property. “Perhaps someone is mistaken about ownership of our fence and our property line, but we are quite clear about ownership of the area,” spokesman Ross Allen told Artnet News. “[N]o city permit allows construction on private property without landowner permission.”
Earth Justice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, wrote on its website that Chevron’s refinery has been “wreaking havoc on the local community for decades and was the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the state.” The residents of the surrounding neighborhood, the organization points out, are primarily people of color.
“The population in closest proximity to the refinery has disproportionately high rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer,” the Guardian reported in 2019. The city’s children have rates of asthma twice the national average, the paper reported in a story on a 2018 lawsuit the city filed against Chevron, alleging public nuisance and negligence.
“We think it’s pretty weird that they disappeared the project without any kind of communication with us,” one of the installation’s organizers, Graham Laird Prentice, told the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that there had been extensive publicity surrounding the project. The removal “seems to have transpired during the night. It’s pretty shady stuff.”
In the middle of the night on May 15, a public art project in Richmond, California, disappeared without a trace. The project, titled Fencelines – A Collective Monument to Resilience, was a collection of slats onto which community members wrote their hopes and wishes for the future of the city and its environment. The slats were installed on a fence that cordons off the Chevron refinery, which sits along the waterfront of the San Francisco Bay.
On Wednesday, Chevron admitted that it took down the public art piece in a statement made to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“The installation on company property was removed, in keeping with our security, safety and facilities policies,” a Chevron representative wrote to ARTnews. “Our fences and other company facilities are functional equipment and we cannot allow tampering or unauthorized construction.”
The artists and organizers behind the project, meanwhile, argue that Fencelines was mostly on a city-owned portion of the fence, which runs alongside a running trail and is separated from Chevron property by a six-lane thoroughfare. Fencelines, which was brought to life by community organizer Princess Robinson and artist Graham LP, had been in the making over the past year and a half, during which they and Gita Khandagle, an artist and designer, reached out to Chevron and city officials to ascertain who owned the fence so they could get approval for the project.
According to the organizers, Chevron never responded but the city did, approving the project. Graham LP and other people involved claim that the majority of the project was installed on the city-owned portion of the fence but bled into a part of the fence that Chevron owns.
“But we don’t want this to just become about the fence and who owns it. This conversation is about who owns the air, who has permission or the right to [impact it],” LP told ARTnews. “Though we’ll definitely push the property aspect of this when it comes down to it, they massively overreached.”
Fencelines was designed to call attention to the environmental and health impact that the refinery has on the Richmond community, where asthma rates are double the state average, according to an ongoing study at University of California, San Francisco. Slats painted with wishes for clean air and water from the community were attached to the fence and topped with ribbons that were activated by the wind, showing that the residents of Richmond live perpetually downwind from the refinery. The piece was installed April 22, on Earth Day.
As of publication, the company has not confirmed whether the piece has been destroyed or is in storage somewhere. Up until Wednesday evening, the artists and organizers associated with Fencelines thought the piece had been stolen as Chevron never reached out to them following the deinstallation or warned them of their impending action. But there were suspicions.
“As soon as it happened I was like, ‘That was Chevron, they’re trying to erase us,’” Katt Ramos, the managing director of Richmond Our Power Coalition, told ARTnews. The coalition brings together local organizations fighting for housing and a just transition away from the oil based industries that surround the area.
“[I thought] that was Chevron because we were three or four days away from Anti-Chevron Day and four or five days away from their stakeholder meeting, they don’t want any bad press.”
The Coalition and Anti-Chevron Day began as a response to the 2012 Chevron Richmond Refinery Fire, the resulting chemical release incident, and the general health issues that residents of Richmond tie to their proximity to the refinery, which has been operating in the city for 120 years. Ramos pointed out that earlier this year unionized steelworkers at the Chevron refinery struck for safer working conditions, which led, the union alleged, to at least five workers being let go.
“But there’s some signs on the fence and now they’re worried about safety?” said Ramos.
Robinson, LP, and Khandagle partnered with numerous organizations and with the Richmond Arts Center to make the installation as well as an accompanying exhibition at RAC that was made possible with a grant from the California Arts Council.
“We invited people to come and make some of these wooden slats, to paint messages of hope, messages of vision for a future where we have clean air, a healthy environment,” Roberto Martinez, a curator at RAC, told ARTnews. “We wanted to bring in people for dialogue about the lived experience of of the Richmond community, which has a very rich and complex history with environmental justice.”
Though there were a few references to Chevron in the signs, for the most part Martinez recalled that messages were generally calls for clean air and water, for love, and for resilience, and that the project was not particularly confrontational. Over 200 wooden slats were painted for the project, which was slated to be de-installed on June 3.
Princess Robinson, who works with Urban Tilth, never saw the project as antagonistic. “I’m a cooperative education and facilitator, I really believe in the cooperative model, to work amongst each other and for everyone to be at the table,” Robinson told ARTnews. Since finding out Chevron took down the piece, Robinson has been trying to see the positive side to this unfortunate situation, but it hasn’t been easy.
“Being a human, at first I was mad, I felt discouraged. I felt disrespected. I felt like well, dang, I don’t matter, all that work that I did doesn’t matter, bringing my community out doesn’t matter,” said Robinson. “But my intentions are now a reality, right, I wanted to have a conversation.”
Now Chevron is reaching out to the organizers as they try to backtrack from what has become a much larger story than could have been anticipated. The next steps are to find out if the work was destroyed and how to respond to the events with another art piece.
Luckily, for Chevron, Robinson is magnanimous.
“Me personally, there’s no bad blood,” said Robinson. “I want Chevron to know, let’s cooperate together and be more compassionate, more respectful, because there’s a better way that we could have done this.”
It was Chevron, a spokesman for the oil company admitted on Wednesday.
Fencelines, a public art display consisting of colorful wooden slats inserted into the openings of a chain link fence between North Richmond neighborhoods and Chevron’s refinery, was a community project, conceived, created and installed over three years as an environmental justice message.
The slats, painted bright shades of red, blue, yellow and white contained messages including: “My home is not your profit,” “We deserve clean air,” “No more oil — for our children’s future.” Others blamed Chevron for polluting the air and called for the refinery to shut down.
The slats were installed on a 1,000-foot stretch of fence along Richmond Parkway on Earth Day, April 22. A person who lives near the installation noticed the Fencelines stakes missing on May 16.
Project sponsors told The Chronicle on Monday they had no suspects in what they labeled the theft of their art project.
But Chevron officials, after a Chronicle story on Tuesday, sent a statement acknowledging the company removed the project because, it claimed, the fence was on the corporation’s property.
“We have a tradition of supporting free expression,” Chevron spokesman Ross Allen said in a statement. “We were not contacted about this activity on our land or fence.
Project organizers insist that Richmond city officials said the fence was on their property and issued permission for its use.
“As standard practice, our crews remove foreign objects on fences due to safety and security concerns,” Allen said. “We place the highest priority on the health and safety of our workforce, and maintaining a safe and secure operating environment helps us protect our assets, our community and the environment.”
Graham Laird Prentice, lead artist on the project, and Roberto Martinez, exhibitions director at the Richmond Art Center, which assisted with the project and displayed a related exhibit in its museum, said they were surprised Chevron was to blame.
“We had an inclination it might be Chevron but we didn’t have the evidence,” Martinez said.
But they knew that the community comments calling for a Chevron-free future might rub the corporation the wrong way, he said.
Prentice agreed.
“We think it’s pretty weird that they disappeared the project without any kind of communication with us,” he said, noting that it was well publicized and promoted. “Also, (the removal) seems to have transpired during the night. It’s pretty shady stuff.”
Prentice said the coalition behind the public art project is working with the city and planning an official response to Chevron. An art-oriented response is also a possibility, especially if the creators can get back the slats that were removed.
“We’re going to make sure everybody knows Chevron is taking responsibility for this act of erasure,” he said.
Michael Cabanatuan is a general assignment and breaking news reporter who’s covered everything from wildfires and sports fans to protests and COVID masking requirements. He’s also written extensively about transportation and covered Contra Costa County for The Chronicle. He’s ridden high-speed trains in Japan, walked in the Transbay Tube, been tear-gassed in Oakland and exposed to nude protesters in the Castro. Cabanatuan worked at the Paradise Post (long before anyone heard of the town), the former West County Times (in Richmond) and the Modesto Bee before joining The Chronicle. He is a two-time graduate of UC Berkeley.
Top image: The Fencelines art installation prior to its disappearance last month in Richmond, near the Chevron refinery.
A Richmond public art display championing social justice, criticizing Chevron and brightening a dreary industrial part of the city has vanished weeks before it was scheduled to end — and the artists are trying to figure out who’s responsible.
A colorful collection of wooden slats woven into a fence along the Richmond Parkway near the Chevron refinery, titled “Fencelines: A Collective Monument to Resilience,” “has been completely disappeared,” the sponsors announced in a statement.
“We are seeking the public’s help in locating hundreds of ‘slat’ painted wood art pieces,” the statement said. “It is believed the art pieces were stolen or deliberately removed between the evening of May 15 and May 16. We ask you to stand in solidarity with the Richmond community in demanding that our art pieces be found and returned.”
The exhibit was installed and unveiled on Earth Day, April 22, and stood undisturbed along the 1,000-foot stretch of Richmond Parkway, a busy connection between Interstates 80 and 580. A person associated with the installation who lives in North Richmond near the fence line noticed it was missing on the morning of May 16.
So far, none of the pieces of the art project have been located, said Graham Laird Prentice, lead artist on the project, and team members have no solid leads on who is responsible for their removal.
“We don’t have any direct evidence, so we’re not making any accusations,” Prentice said. “What we’re pointing out is that we’ve been working on this project for three years now in collaboration with the city and Richmond community organizations.”
Spokespersons for Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Richmond police and the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office have been contacted, and the team behind the installation were seeking footage from traffic cameras in the area. They’ve also checked with the city’s Public Works Department to make sure the slats weren’t removed as part of a cleanup or maintenance effort, Prentice said.
The public art project, three years in the making, consists of the wooden slats painted red, yellow, blue or white with each bearing a message from an individual or family promoting environmental justice or community solidarity: “My home is not your profit,” “We deserve clean air,” “No more oil — for our children’s future.”
Some, not surprisingly, criticized Chevron, calling for the oil company to stop polluting the air or to shut down altogether.
For decades, Richmond has had a strained relationship with Chevron, whose refinery and related offices are its largest employer. But while the oil company provides jobs, it’s also brought concerns over pollution and the effects on residents’ health. The refinery, its impacts on Richmond and its future have long animated the city’s often bitterly divided political scene.
The artists are convinced that whoever tore down the public art display — done with approval of the city and its art center, which had a more traditional indoor exhibit in conjunction — did so deliberately.
“Our view is that this was a deliberate act of erasure,” Prentice said, “and an attempt to silence what people have to say.”
If that was, in fact, the goal of the thieves, Prentice said, it didn’t work. During the exhibit at the Richmond Art Center, visitors were given the chance to paint their own slats and deliver their own messages. And “Fencelines” organizers are deciding where and how they should be displayed.
Michael Cabanatuan is a general assignment and breaking news reporter who’s covered everything from wildfires and sports fans to protests and COVID masking requirements. He’s also written extensively about transportation and covered Contra Costa County for The Chronicle. He’s ridden high-speed trains in Japan, walked in the Transbay Tube, been tear-gassed in Oakland and exposed to nude protesters in the Castro. Cabanatuan worked at the Paradise Post (long before anyone heard of the town), the former West County Times (in Richmond) and the Modesto Bee before joining The Chronicle. He is a two-time graduate of UC Berkeley.
Top image: The “Fencelines” art installation prior to its mysterious disappearance last month in Richmond, near the Chevron refinery. The installation, made up of hundreds of painted slats, is missing after what the organizations behind the project say was a deliberate act to silence its message of environmental activism. Provided by Graham Laird Prentice
June 28 – August 19, 2023 Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804 Gallery Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm Exhibitions and events are all free and no rsvp is necessary
Richmond, CA: Summer exhibitions at Richmond Art Center (RAC) bring Nahui Ollin to the main gallery. This large survey of work by esteemed Richmond-based artist Andrés Cisneros-Galindo is accompanied by Printmaking at NIAD, a group show of artists who have worked with Cisneros-Galindo over the past three decades.
In the south gallery Anne Wolf invites reflection on the word “enough” through artistic collaborations in ENOUGH Considered. While in the west gallery, a solo exhibition of paintings by David Burke called Solastalgia explores the psychological impact of environmental destruction.
Nahui Ollin: The work of Andrés Cisneros-Galindo
Exhibition: June 28 – August 19, 2023 Reception: Saturday, July 15, 12pm-2pm Print Demo: Saturday, July 29, 2pm-3:30pm Artist Talk: Saturday, August 12, 2pm-3:30pm
As the first major survey of Andrés Cisneros-Galindo’s work, this exhibition offers an intimate perspective into Cisneros-Galindo’s experiences as a Mexican immigrant, activist, educator and artist grappling with the social and political currents of American life.
From the political posters that helped mobilize the Bay Area’s Chicano community to the abstract expressionist paintings that embody fragments and cultural vestiges of the immigrant identity, this exhibition highlights how Cisneros-Galindo’s practice has always been integrated in contemporary struggles around race, education, the environment, justice and democracy both in the U.S. and in Mexico.
Top image: Andrés Cisneros-Galindo, Mictlan, 1995, Oil and mixed media on canvas
Printmaking at NIAD: The Legacy of Andrés Cisneros-Galindo
Exhibition: June 28 – August 19, 2023 Reception: Saturday, July 15, 12pm-2pm
Andrés Cisneros-Galindo began facilitating printmaking at NIAD Art Center in 1985, shortly after the organization was founded. This exhibition surveys the decades of prints by artists working with Cisneros-Galindo at NIAD; exploring and reimagining the process of printmaking through collaboration.
Above image: Felicia Griffin, Untitled (D1338), Unique 1989, Linocut print on paper
ENOUGH Considered
Exhibition: June 28 – August 19, 2023 Reception: Saturday, July 15, 12pm-2pm Stitch n’ Bitch + Enough Photo Portrait sessions: Saturday, July 22, 11am-3pm Artist Gallery Walkthrough: Saturday, August 12, 12pm
Anne Wolf’s ENOUGH Considered explores the multiple ways we define and embody ENOUGH. Through a series of artistic collaborations, Wolf invites reflection into our perceptions of wholeness, abundance, boundaries and sufficiency.
The exhibition includes Wolf’s hand stitched alphabet samplers where the word ENOUGH appears buried within the cross-stitched alphabet. A collection of portrait photographs, created with photographer Lisa Levine, convey a personal embodied gesture of ENOUGH. While designer Ana Llorente brings together written pieces from portrait participants with her mural ENOUGH EVERYONE TOGETHER/ !BASTA! TODOS JUNTOS. Letterpress cards created by James Tucker are available to inscribe thoughts, feelings or stories about ENOUGH.
As a participatory project, gallery visitors will find opportunities to contribute to ENOUGH Considered. This includes an event called Stitch n’ Bitch + Enough Photo Portrait Sessions on Saturday, July 22, 11am-3pm, where community members can collectively stitch on a large-scale banner and have their portrait taken.
Above image: Anne Wolf, ENOUGH if we Share, 2020, Hand stitched cotton on linen
David Burke: Solastalgia
Exhibition: June 28 – August 19, 2023 Reception: Saturday, July 15, 12pm-2pm Gallery Walkthrough: Saturday, July 29, 12:30pm
Solastalgia, the second exhibition in The Greenhouse exhibition series, features paintings by David Burke. Derived from nostalgia, solastalgia specifically references the negative psychological effect of chronic environmental destruction on an individual’s homeland, or the place they call home.
The Greenhouse is a three-part exhibition series that focuses on the climate crisis and environmental justice movements in Richmond, California. The Greenhouse is organized in partnership with Round Weather, a nonprofit art gallery in Oakland, and curated by its director Chris Kerr.
Above image: David Burke, The World Without Us, Acrylic ink on acrylic panel
About Richmond Art Center: Richmond Art Center has been sharing art and creating with the community since 1936. Our programs encompass classes, exhibitions and events at our facility in downtown Richmond, as well as off-site activities that bring free, high-quality art making experiences to WCCUSD schools and community partners. richmondartcenter.org
Scholarships Available for West Contra Costa Unified School District Students to Attend Camp for Free
In partnership with the WCCUSD Office of Extended Learning, Richmond Art Center is offering WCCUSD students scholarships for free enrollment in our Summer Art Camp!
Program Information: Summer Art Camp at Richmond Art Center gives kids (ages 5-12) an exciting immersion in visual arts practice. Daily projects include drawing, painting, printmaking, textile arts, and sculpture.
Schedule: In 2023 camps will be held over 6 weeks between June 12 to July 28. (No camp July 3 to July 7). Weekly camps run Tuesday through Friday from 10am to 2pm.
Please note, scholarships to attend camp for free are awarded on a first come first served basis. Camp seats are limited.
HOW TO APPLY FOR A CAMP SCHOLARSHIP
1. Choose which camps your student would like to attend
CLICK HERE to view Summer Art Camps. (Weekly camps themes are listed towards the bottom of this webpage. Don’t worry is a camp is listed as fully booked – we have reserved spaces for WCCUSD students. A staff person will contact you after you submit an application.)
2. Complete the Scholarship Request Form
CLICK HERE to fill out the scholarship application with your contact information and list which camp/s you would like to attend. A Richmond Art Center staff person will contact you to confirm enrollment.
Scholarships Terms
Eligibility: All enrolled WCCUSD students between the ages of 5 and 12 are eligible to apply for a Summer Camp Scholarship.
Selection: Awards are given on a first come first served basis. Camp seats are limited.
Non-sharable Award: Applicants are not allowed to share the scholarship discount code under any circumstances.
Withdrawal Policy: Applicants are responsible for communicating if they can no longer attend their camp at least two weeks in advance of withdrawing.
Breach of Terms and Conditions: If these terms and conditions are breached, the applicant may be suspended from applying for all future scholarship opportunities.
Please let us know if you have any questions or you need help to register.
Becas disponibles para que los estudiantes del Distrito Escolar Unificado de West Contra Costa asistan al campamento de forma gratuita
¡En asociación con la Oficina de Aprendizaje Extendido de WCCUSD, el Centro de Arte de Richmond ofrece becas a los estudiantes de WCCUSD para la inscripción gratuita en nuestro Campamento de Arte de Verano!
Información del programa: El Campamento de Arte de Verano en el Centro de Arte de Richmond brinda a los niños (de 5 a 12 años) una inmersión emocionante en la práctica de las artes visuales. Los proyectos diarios incluyen dibujo, pintura, grabado, artes textiles y escultura.
Horario: en 2023, los campamentos se llevarán a cabo durante 6 semanas entre el 12 de junio y el 28 de julio. (No hay campamento del 3 de julio al 7 de julio). Los campamentos semanales se realizan de martes a viernes de 10 a. m. a 2 p. m.
Tenga en cuenta que las becas para asistir al campamento de forma gratuita se otorgan por orden de llegada. Los asientos del campamento son limitados.
CÓMO SOLICITAR UNA BECA DE CAMPAMENTO
1. Elija a qué campamentos le gustaría asistir su estudiante
HAGA CLIC AQUÍ para ver los campamentos de arte de verano. (Los temas de los campamentos semanales se enumeran en la parte inferior de esta página web. No se preocupe, si un campamento aparece como completo, tenemos espacios reservados para los estudiantes de WCCUSD. Un miembro del personal se comunicará con usted después de enviar una solicitud).
2. Complete el formulario de solicitud de beca
HAGA CLIC AQUÍ para completar la solicitud de beca con su información de contacto y enumere a qué campamento(s) le gustaría asistir. Un miembro del personal del Centro de Arte de Richmond se comunicará con usted para confirmar la inscripción.
Condiciones de las becas
Elegibilidad: Todos los estudiantes inscritos en WCCUSD entre las edades de 5 y 12 son elegibles para solicitar una beca de campamento de verano.
Premio: Las Becas de Campamento de Verano cubren las tarifas de inscripción del Campamento de Verano para estudiantes calificados de WCCUSD.
Selección: Los premios se otorgan por orden de llegada. Los asientos del campamento son limitados.
Premio no compartible: los solicitantes no pueden compartir el código de descuento de la beca bajo ninguna circunstancia.
Política de retiro: los solicitantes son responsables de comunicar si ya no pueden asistir a su campamento al menos dos semanas antes del retiro.
Incumplimiento de los términos y condiciones: si se infringen estos términos y condiciones, se puede suspender al solicitante para solicitar todas las futuras oportunidades de becas.
Háganos saber si tiene alguna pregunta o si necesita ayuda para registrarse.
Large-scale art installation confronting Chevron refinery in Richmond is stolen
Richmond, CA: The Fencelines public art project was stolen from a fence along the Richmond Parkway in North Richmond sometime between May 15 and May 16. The artwork was nearly one thousand feet long and made up of hundreds of painted fence slats.
The Fencelines project team released a letter in response to the theft. The letter reads, in part, “Collectively and in community with paint and words we built a Monument to Richmond’s Resilience in the ongoing struggle for environmental justice. In what we must understand as an attempt to silence our voices and erase our stories, the Fencelines public art has been completely disappeared.”
Fencelines centered circumstances of environmental injustice through a public art installation along the Richmond Parkway, where a chainlink fence separates Richmond residential neighborhoods from the Chevron petroleum refinery. The public artwork comprised colorful fence slats attached to the fence and adorned with ribbons animating the direction of the wind. Over the past year at community workshops in Richmond hundreds of individuals and families recorded their stories and messages on these slats, documenting the impact of the petroleum industry on many lives and together forming a collective monument to resilience.
The artwork was installed on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22, during a special event hosted by Richmond LAND. Community volunteers – including Richmond’s newly elected mayor Eduardo Martinez – came together to install the slats.
The Fencelines project team is appealing to the general public for information about the whereabouts of the artwork. Anyone with information should contact Roberto Martinez at roberto@richmondartcenter.org
A Community Response Forum will be held on June 3, 12pm-2pm at Richmond Art Center. All community members are invited to this event to learn more about the Fencelines project and talk about what a response to the theft should look like. Folks will also have an opportunity to paint new art pieces to collectively take a stance against the attempted erasure of their stories.
About the Project Team: Fencelines is co-created by local artists and organizers – Graham L.P., Princess Robinson, and Gita Khandagle – and members of the Richmond Community working in partnership with the City of Richmond’s Love Your Block, Richmond Art Center, Richmond Our Power Coalition, and Richmond LAND.
STOLEN: ‘Fencelines’ Collective Monument to Resilience
To the people of Richmond and the Greater Bay Area,
To the individuals, collectives and organizations that are on the ground fighting for environmental justice,
To those that believe in the power of art, people and community to help us imagine and build a better world,
With sadness and anger in our hearts we inform you that the city-sanctioned public art project Fencelines – A Collective Monument to Resilience was stolen from its location on the Richmond Parkway along the Bay Trail between Vernon Avenue and N Castro Street in North Richmond; the fenceline at this location separates Richmond neighborhoods from the Chevron petroleum refinery.
The Fencelines installation brought together messages from the community: messages of hope, of unity and of care for our living world, and calling for accountability from Chevron for generations of polluting the community’s air, water, land and people. Collectively and in community with paint and words we built a Monument to Richmond’s Resilience in the ongoing struggle for environmental justice. In what we must understand as an attempt to silence our voices and erase our stories, the Fencelines public art has been completely disappeared.
We are seeking the public’s help in locating hundreds of ‘slat’ painted wood art pieces. It is believed the art pieces were stolen or deliberately removed between the evening of May 15 and May 16.
We ask you to stand in solidarity with the Richmond community in demanding that our art pieces be found and returned.
In 2021, co-creators of the Fencelines project started to work with many local organizations to engage community to reflect on Richmond’s historic environmental injustices through art. At workshops in the community and at Richmond Art Center, individuals and families participated in creating hundreds of colorful wooden slats, culminating in a major exhibition at Richmond Art Center during the Spring of 2023 on view until June 3. This allowed participants to get a visual of their personal customized slats in Richmond Art Center. With so many supporters, this project became a force to be reckoned with!
In addition to popular support and widespread grassroots participation, the Fencelines project also received unanimous approval from Richmond’s Public Arts and Culture Commission, the City of Richmond’s Love Your Block program and Public Works Department, as well as Contra Costa County’s North Richmond Municipal Advisory Committee to install the project pieces on city-owned portions of this fenceline.
On Earth Day 2023, Fencelines partnered with Richmond LAND to install hundreds of the slats in an effort to amplify the voices of Richmond. Together and in formation, the slats provide a creative platform to express the lived experience of folks here in the ongoing struggle for environmental justice and housing stabilization.
The Fencelines public art installation was installed on April 22, 2023 along the Bay Trail between Vernon Avenue and N Castro Street in North Richmond and was to be displayed until mid-June.
If you have seen any of the art pieces from the project or have any information regarding its whereabouts, please email Roberto Martinez at roberto@richmondartcenter.org
Please share this letter far and wide. Together we can find our stolen artwork and stand strong against the erasure of the struggle for environmental justice.
Thank you for your support!
With love and gratitude,
The Fencelines Project Team
Graham L.P., Princess Robinson, Gita Khandagle, and members of the Richmond Community. In Partnership with the City of Richmond’s Love Your Block, Richmond Art Center, Richmond Our Power Coalition, Richmond LAND.
