Exhibit A
Produced by Hodari Davis and Hosted by Edutainment for Equity in partnership with the City of Oakland Department of Race and Equity, The City of Oakland Department of Arts and Culture, The project has attracted a community of co conspirators including The Center for Cultural Power, Red Bay Coffee, Alena Museum, The Institute for the Future, Black Terminus, Wakanda Dream Lab, TownFuturist Media, DreamTDK, Safe Passages, Words Beats and Life, Youth Speaks and the Life is Living Community.
Exhibit A: Oakland is an Exhibition of various data points that illustrate AntiBlack outcomes in the city of Oakland. The idea behind the visualizations is modeled after the work of WEB Dubois and his Data Visualizations at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Dubois introduced the American Negro to the world, by telling the story of our freedom from slavery, and progress to citizenship by in a first of its kind exhibition of data visualizations. Exhibit A features large interactive data visualizations and several artifacts of the future of Oakland illustrating trajectories impacted by both pro and anti-Black futures. The activity also features digital interfaces, Augmented Reality experiences, and interactive workshops designed to spark conversation and critical engagement. Participants are enlisted to engage their own friends through social media by sharing images of the art and their response to it, and offering visions and forecasts for the future of Oakland.
Exhibit A is also a music project produced and performed by Candice Antique in collaboration with many performing artists in Oakland. The idea behind the music is to humanize the data creating empathic entry points for people to see beyond the numbers. The music is embedded in the exhibition, but can also be shared independently in a live setting or as a recorded album. Exhibit A Album 1 is slated to drop in February of 2024.
This project is not only about exposure, but it is intended to provoke deeper conversations about the future of Oakland, and specifically about the future of Black people in Oakland. This project recognizes that Anti Blackness is only one of many storms hitting Black people in the Bay Area, and incorporates visions of the future to ask questions about how those forecasts will impact or implicate Black life. This project is not intended to focus exclusively on Oakland, but has been developing in Oakland with hopes to extend beyond and really challenge the broader political mythos that institutional racism does not exist in the United States.
WEB Dubois is the inspiration for the Exhibit A Exhibition.
This exhibition exists as a counter narrative to the destructive mythos of Black joy permeating the city while Black suffering resides in its core. It is a woefully incomplete story to say Oakland is a Black city or Oakland is a progressive city unless we also accept that Oakland is an anti black city, with documented anti black outcomes that reflect systemic and institutional practice across generations. Housing, Criminal Justice, Education, Environment and Health are just five windows into this structural characteristic that is effectively driving so many Black Oaklanders to poverty, homelessness, migration, incarceration and premature death. What can we do to make this reality the past? We can imagine the future of Oakland and prepare ourselves to invent it. We can forecast from where we are to where we want to be, and imagine a path to get there. For those who say institutional racism does not exist, here is Exhibit A.
In October of 2022 e4e launched Exhibit A Oakland at the 15th Annual Life is Living Festival.
Some of the data presented in the exhibition can be found in the Oakland Equity Indicators Report.
Exhibit A: Oakland premiered at the Life is Living Festival in Little Bobby Hutton (Defemery) Park on October 8th 2022. This live in person engagement included a video booth, selfie walls and other interactive activities and was viewed by hundreds of people.
In October of 2023 e4e worked in partnership with the legendary grafitti crew TDK and in partnership with Safe Passages, and Words Beats and Life to produce the first Exhibit A Dream Invitational
The Exhibit A Dream Invitational commissioned 15 writers, and 18 foster youth in the creation of new visualizations and dreams for the future of Oakland. This activity was viewed by thousands, and the completed art will soon be incorporated into the existing exhibition. Partners for the Invitational include Safe Passages, DreamTDK, GFC, Words Beats and Life, Life is Living and the One Nation One Project.
In March of 2024 e4e facilitated the first Exhibit A Townhall on Anti Blackness in the City of Oakland
The Exhibit A Town Hall on Anti Blackness was an evening event sponsored by the Department of Race and Equity and held at the Oakland Museum on March 14, 2024. This event was primarily for city workers to be introduced to the project, and included an exhibition of the visualizations, exclusive live performances of some of the songs and engaging conversation about AntiBlackness in and the future of Oakland. The event also included an short conversation between legendary Bay Area Journalist DJ Davey D, and Exhibit A Lead Artist and Producer Hodari B. Davis.
Part of this conversation was captured and broadcast on Hard Knock Radio on March 15, 2024, which you can access HERE.
For more information and booking contact hodari@edutainmentforequity.com