Temescal Amity Works 2004-7
A Fieldfaring Project, Oakland California
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Temescal Amity Works was a social sculpture that Ted Purves and I created and operated out of a storefront in the Temescal District of Oakland from 2004-2007. The project was designed to explore the history of the neighborhood through backyard fruit trees, the migration of Italian farmers and farming practices in the last century, and the local inheritance of this history. We drew upon historical models of mutual-aid societies, barn-raisings, DIY collectives and communitarianism.
We were interested in how a specific community built relationships through personal and casual economies and how our project might overlay itself onto these relationships and bring them into a new focus. We wanted to facilitate dialogue and storytelling around the nature of living in Temescal and the ways people perceive this public space, by creating a system of exchange. We consciously created a project that we were implicated in as a neighbor rather than a visitor to a community which was a common predicament in public art at the time.
This project was facilitated through the generation of two interlocking programs Reading Room and Big BackYard. The Big BackYard was a crop sharing program and alternative casual economy. Built upon the history of the neighborhood and the fact that most residents had backyard fruit trees planted by earlier residents and Italian immigrants, (noting the orchards/agriculture in this region in the 1800s and bountiful natural resources for thousands of years before that), we would come pick the fruit or pick it up and redistribute it for free from our hand push cart or our storefront which served as a central hub.
The Reading Room was located in a small storefront in an alley just off Telegraph Ave, on 49th street, which had once been a horse stall for the local scavengers and garbage haulers in the last century. We contextualized the ongoing experience of the Big BackYard through casual contact with us during open hours, as well as through a series of public events, film screenings and a small resource library. The storefront was also available for local groups and meetings for free.
We invited local artists and activists to create projects that overlaid those of Temescal Amity Works in a productive and complicated way, making our space and resources available to them, including modest re-distributions of our funding including Brittany Powell, Jeff Norman, Mark Search, Jon Brumit/NPR (Neighborhood Public Radio), Shane Montgomery, Michael Swaine, Arcangelo Wessels, Sarah Klein, Joe McHenry.
As we developed an audience we realized it was comprised of a complex of home gardeners, emerging foodies, urban homesteaders, artists living in the neighborhood, community organizers, and people who had just moved to the area who were looking to connect with the neighborhood. The project was situated between socially engaged art and the reemergence of urban food production and social movements such as Slow Food, influencing current trends exploring alternative economies, community organizing and urban farming.
Today in the same alleys where we kept shop, you can find an entrepreneurial and boutique marketplace. There is a store dedicated to the home economics of preserving food around the corner on Telegraph. All the small buildings, once horse stalls, are occupied by small businesses and young artisans interested in art and lifestyle, health, gastronomy and local industry.
This project received funding from Creative Capital in NYC 2005, Creative Work Fund in SF 2005 and Oakland Cultural Affairs 2006.
























