CAPL brings action and participatory engagement to the CCA community through events and happenings for the well-being and betterment of the students, faculty, staff, and the Bay Area.

BOM Rock-A-Thon Fall 2024

Sponsored by CAPL and Love Lives in SF

November 1st 6-late, Timken Hall

Description:

The Center of Art and Public Life welcomes you to our Halloweenie musical event open to the CCA community on November 1st, from 6-9 pm at Timken Hall. In collaboration with The Band of Musicians, CCA Radio, and HOWY Club, we present a space for community engagement with live screen printing by Chris Treggiari and community clay heart building with the Love Lives in SF campaign. All proceeds from this event help fund musical student-led organizations at CCA.

Theme: Halloween

Sunday, October 13 from from 12 pm to 4 pm CAPL will be sharing the Love Lives in SF Campaign at Ferry Building for our second workshop. We will be working with the public to help people create clay hearts and make voice recordings about what they most love about SF. The clay hearts will be brought back to CCA to be fired and fitted with a QR code linked to a compilation of the recorded voice memos. We will then place these hearts around the city for people to find and engage with creating moments of unexpected joy.

Come join us in showing how much SF is loved!

Opening Thursday, October 17th 10 am to 1 pm PLAySPACE Gallery Organized by Creative Citizens in Action

On Thursday, September 26, CAPL will be sharing the Love Lives in SF Campaign at Creative Arts Charter School. We will be working with the students and their families to create clay hearts and make voice recordings stating what they most love about SF. The clay hearts will be brought back to CCA to be fired and fitted with a QR code linked to a compilation of the recorded voice memos. We will then place these hearts around the city for people to find and engage with creating moments of unexpected joy.

Sunday, September 8 from from 12 pm to 4 pm CAPL will be sharing the Love Lives in SF Campaign at Ferry Building for our second workshop. We will be working with the public to help people create clay hearts and make voice recordings about what they most love about SF. The clay hearts will be brought back to CCA to be fired and fitted with a QR code linked to a compilation of the recorded voice memos. We will then place these hearts around the city for people to find and engage with creating moments of unexpected joy.

Come join us in showing how much SF is loved!

Impact Award Recipient In My Fluffy Pajamas: From Silk Road to San Francisco will be hosting a workshop at the CAPL Space. Come and participate! SIgn up here.

Local interdisciplinary social practice artist Badri Valian will host two free workshops and an art exhibition on the theme of “Silk Road to San Francisco” as part of the 27th Annual United States of Asian American Festival (USAAF) hosted by The Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center of San Francisco. This multicultural event invites participants from diverse backgrounds to engage in a guided exploration of the relationship of their contemporary (im)migration stories to the traditional history of the Silk Road, a vital ancient cultural trade route connecting East to West.

The workshops, co-facilitated with craft-as-therapy artist-writer-researcher Kathryn Vercillo, will include storytelling, mapmaking, textile art, and shared cultural foods. These creative activities connect individuals to what "Be(long)ing Here,” (which is this year’s festival theme) means to them, celebrating the resilience of these rich histories that have intersected here in the Bay Area.

Following the workshops is a one-day exhibition, uniting participants from all sessions with the public, showcasing their art and stories, fostering cultural exchange, and cultivating connections across Asian-American communities. By emphasizing the complexities of Asian-American journeys to find a sense of "Be(long)ing Here," it also raises critical awareness for American-born residents in order to increase understanding of the multifaceted journeys and stories of San Francisco’s Asian-American and Pacific Islander community.

• Workshop, Monday May 20th 4pm - 9 pm at Center for Art and Public Life, San Francisco

Workshop space is limited but there are still a few openings to join in. Workshops are free and no previous art experience is required. Each participant only needs to attend one of the available workshops. Preference is given to people who identify as part of the AAPI community; however all are welcome. For more information visit: https://www.badrivalian.com/silk-road-to-san-francisco

Bay Area Student Writers Reading Event is an inaugural reading event hosting MFA students from five Bay Area MFA Creative Writing Programs, CCA, USF, SFSU, SJSU, and St. Mary’s College.

The Google form sign-up sheet is accessible here: https://forms.gle/VvRSgKRG358hYHtv7


The event details are as follows:
Date and Time: April 26, 2024 at 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: Hybrid; via Zoom or in person, Blattner Hall, 75 Arkansas Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
Theme: Change
Allotted Reading Time: 2 minutes.
Drinks and snacks will be provided.

Friday, April 12

7 to 9 pm

Timken Hall

CAPL is partnering with CCA Radio to celebrate the podcast release for Band of Musicians (BOM). The Band of Musicians are a group of CCA students creating an inclusive community for music. They welcome everyone musicians or not to come jam with them on Fridays at 4pm. Take a listen to our podcast discussion with Lars Bauer founder of The Band of Musicians to gain an understanding of what music means to them!

Sustainability In Practice challenges artists to find innovative solutions to combat waste in art. The Sustainability Expo is fully run, curated, and features students at CCA and in CCA’s Center for Public Art and Life. The exhibition’s theme, Sustainability In Practice, asks students to explore and engage with environmentally conscious art practices in a range of multi-disciplinary mediums. Artists implement non-consumptive and eco-friendly ideals into their work with collages, found objects, sculptures, prints, and more! Come support and interact with CCA student work at 1111 8th St. The Nave March 11, 2024 - March 16, 2024.

The theme is Sustainability in Practice, meaning any piece of your work that engages with a form of sustainable design or material! This can be anything from collages, drawings on cardboard, hand-dyed fabric, crochet, metal arts, jewelry, print, found art, repurposed materials, materials bought from small businesses, DIY paper/paint/frame, and more!

The Sustainability Expo is fully run, curated, and featuring students at CCA and in CCA’s Center for Public Art and Life. Please reach out to  (kmcleod@cca.edu.) with questions.

2023 Impact Award Recipient Katayoun Bahrami in partnership with Clarion Alley Mural Projects continues the exhibition series Manifest Differently February 3, 5 to 7 pm at Minnesota Street Projects with her video entitled Resilience of Poppies.

CAPL and GD Club have partnered to create a memorable experience for the CCA students. We are hosting a Branding Workshop on Design Activism! CCA MDes Faculty Rachel Gogel will and Guest SPeakers Hope Meng and Lena Wolff will present their Vote! campaign.

Wednesday, Nov. 15, 5 pm to 8:30 pm in The main building E2.

Food will be provided!!!

The sensitivity of the holiday season can trigger feelings of isolation for

LGBTQIA+ students far from home or disconnected from their guardians and

queer identity. CAPL’s 2023 “Queer Social” offers LGBTQ+ identifying and

allied students a safe space to be out and proud while feeling at home. Come

celebrate queerness, connect with peers, and craft a homely space with

music, games, snacks, and art this November 22, 2023 at the CAPL Office

121 Hubbell St. office space.

Come and Join Us for Creative Expression in this Time of Overwhelm.

CAPL Recognizes the need for community for our students, faculty, and staff. We invite you to come and Talk + Make + Snack.

121 Hubbell St

Oct. 27, 2023

12 pm to 7pm

Drop in when you have time!

"Manifest Differently" is not just a project; it's a movement. Spearheaded by artist/poet Kim Shuck and artist/writer Megan Wilson, this visionary initiative is set to collaborate with 38 diverse, multigenerational visual and media artists and poets over the next year. Their mission is to delve deep into the historical complexities of Manifest Destiny, the expansionist ideology that shaped America's westward expansion, and its enduring impact on multicultural and multi-ethnic communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Through the potent mediums of literary, visual, and media arts storytelling, "Manifest Differently" seeks to uncover the shadows of history, exposing the legacies of violence, trauma, addiction, and the emergence of resistance and resilience.

In the interest of the mental health of the CCA community, CAPL Cares is bringing free weekly yoga classes to camps. Please join us Wednesdays from 1 pm to 2 pm in the Nave presentation space. wear comfortable clothes and bring your own mat.

Fun games, meditation sessions, desktop yoga, social connections, and much more!! Get ready to have some amazing fun!!

In collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University - Silicon Valley.

Date:

Every Thursday, starting February 2

Time:

6-6.45 pm

Location:

Zoom

Register at:

bit.ly/ww_cca

A Zoom link will be sent to participants once they register.

The Oakland Lowdown, a community studio for local news and art, is hiring interns to co-produce local news products in collaboration with people living in downtown Oakland. The interns will work from our studio at 300 14th Street to create a video broadcast and print zines, called the Downtown Lowdown, that inform downtown Oaklanders about what's going on in the community and elevate stories from the neighborhood.

Fellows will work with members of the Oakland Lowdown – including professionals from Journalism + Design at The New School, the California College of the Arts, and local community-based organizations – to develop story ideas and record and edit stories for a local news show. We will produce the show to share on our social media channels and broadcast from a monitor in our storefront window. Interns will also help produce other news products for the community, including a print zine that we will distribute to people in downtown Oakland. You can see a PDF copy of our first edition of the zine here: http://bit.ly/downtownlowdownzine

This role is community-driven, and interns will seek input from people who live and work in the neighborhood about what kinds of stories and information we should include in our news show and zines. It's an experimental project where interns will have plenty of freedom to try out ideas with support from the Lowdown team, and will get experience working to produce a variety of creative, community-centered media.

The fellows will be expected to spend approximately 8 hours per week on this project for a period of three months between February 2023 and June 2023. We are flexible on the start and end times of the internships depending on schedules. The hours are also flexible: we normally work from our studio on Tuesdays and Wednesdays but can accommodate different scheduling needs.

Fellows will be paid a $2,000 stipend and receive training and professional development opportunities in art, journalism, and media production from our core team.

CORE DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES * Gather insights from people in downtown Oakland about what stories and information they'd like to see in a local news show; * Develop and pitch story ideas for segments that we could produce for the Downtown Lowdown; * Record and edit video segments to broadcast across social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) and from a monitor in our storefront window; * Help design and produce a print zine with original stories and information for the neighborhood; * Co-create social media posts and related news content that we can feature on our Instagram and Facebook pages, as well as our street-facing studio windows.

WE'RE LOOKING FOR CANDIDATES WITH: * Experience or interest in working to create journalism with and for people from marginalized communities; * Some experience recording and editing video, either on social media or professional software such as Premiere; * Willingness to experiment and share creative ideas for how we could best inform and elevate people in our neighborhood. * Ability to work from our studio at 300 14th Street in Oakland. * Graphic design skills and experience producing content for social media channels are a plus. Candidates who are bilingual and multilingual are also a plus.

If you're interested, please complete the application below. Applications are due by February 24. You can email Cole Goins, managing director of the Journalism + Design lab and one of the co-founders of the Oakland Lowdown: goinsm@newschool.edu.

To love is to truly see and care for the existence of a being. The “Love” exhibition asks artists to explore queer love, family dynamics, self-tenderness, and loss via 2D, 3D, and 4D mediums. Participating artists share their intimate journeys with love in painterly projects in which each unique submission offers a window into their artist's deepest affection. “Love” aims to combat the commercialization of love and Valentine’s Day with personal anecdotes and vulnerability bringing humanity back to a previously cooperate-washed holiday. Answering the question “What is the meaning of love?” participants bring warmth and life to this interactive multimedia exhibition at CCA’s Nave.

Review By Charlinee Wichaidit

This past weekend, the Center of Art and Public Life and CAPL Connect Fellows, Kaeli Mcleod, held a

special Valentine’s Day exhibition about love, entitled “LOVE”. However, while the holiday is typically

associated with romantic love, often heterosexual pairings, Mcleod’s exhibition wanted to explore many

overlooked aspects of love such as familial love, queer love, self-love, and loss.

Through her curation, the exhibition features a variety of different mediums ranging from illustrations to

ceramic sculptures, which was a compelling decision on Mcleod’s part because it allowed for

a different interpretation of the selected artists’ works and their intended message. Viewing the works, it

is apparent that the decision to feature artists from diverse backgrounds is a powerful one as it

communicated to the viewer that the concept of ‘love’ is broad and not as universal as we, in the West,

have always perceived it to be – as a matter of fact, ‘love’ is a term that is both temporary and

permanent and intimate and grand. An example would be Lindsey Machado’s sculpture in which, the

work is depicting an interior, likely a childhood bedroom, with great intimacy and detail, and its medium,

ceramic elevates the work as the artist attempts to solidify a memory as a permanent artifact. In

contrast, the illustrations by Millicent Villacastin are charming with their simple illustrations but, the way

it was presented as reminiscent of a polaroid that can be found in someone’s bedroom and is meant to

be taken down eventually.

Overall, the exhibition was a refreshing perspective on the concept of love and how different students at

CCA has interpreted that prompt creating a compelling show. Concerning the world at large, the

the exhibition has brought up some interesting questions about how we, as a society, perceive love and

what kind of love is deemed most “important” or “correct” as past generations have been previously

told. Therefore, by highlighting artists from diverse backgrounds, the exhibition marks a good

introduction to presenting what ‘love’ means to those who do not conform to stereotypical definitions

of love and those who have been excluded from partaking and expressing their love as it was ‘right’ – so,

Kaeli Mcleod’s exhibition was thought-provoking and very much welcomed as part of the CAPL

programming.

These community circles are created to provide a space for healing and care, specifically for the identities centered. We kindly ask that you don't participate if you don't identify as part of these communities nor are in relationship to these communities, to uplift and hold space for the folks who are affected and hurting during this time.

#CCAsolidarity #ResponsibilityISSolidarity

• The Offices of DEIB and Student Belonging & Inclusion will be holding a community circle centering Black healing to process the brutal death of Tyre Nichols and how to keep our community safe. Special thanks to the Center for Art and Public Life for providing a gathering space.
  • Monday, Feb 6th, 3-4 pm at The Center for Art & Public Life - 121 Hubbel Street

The "Woman, Life, Freedom" event took place on Tuesday, November 1st, from 11 to 12 p.m. at 121 Hubbell St., also known as the CCA CAPL Connects office.

To show support for the Iranian women, the Center for Art and Public Life gathered with the CCA faculty, staff, and student body. CCA CAPL Connects established a forum for discussion among CCA members in order to educate, create, and prepare for action.

The Vice President for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, Tricia Brand, and the assistant director of CAPL, Tracy Tanner, have demonstrated outstanding support for the CCA Iranian community, particularly the women in Iran, by dedicating the CAPL social media platforms to sharing and promoting this movement.

Despite the heavy downpour, CAPL Connects managed to host a very successful and productive gathering thanks to the participation and assistance of CCA faculty, staff, and students. Additionally, Woman, Life, and Freedom posters decorated the welcoming CAPL office. These posters were created by Iranian designers inside Iran and made open source so everyone in the world could help amplify their voices. Traditional Iranian sweets and hot black cardamom tea added to the welcoming atmosphere.

The CAPL staff kicked off the discussion by briefly summarizing what they had accomplished in the previous month. Everyone else then shared their thoughts on how to support the movement. The discussion centered around making sure the CCA Iranian community was seen, heard, and supported during this difficult time specifically the students.

The attendees shared upcoming events centered around the larger Women, Life, Freedom event and pledged group support.

Participants included Sunny A. Smith, Dean of Fine Arts, Alireza Borhani, Dr. Negar Kalantar, chair and faculty of the Critical Ethnic Studies Program, and their students. Shylah Pacheco Hamilton and Taraneh Hemami, chair, and faculty of the Architecture and Interior Design Program, also attended. Jasmin Darznik was not in attendance but generously shared books about women's lives in Iran including multiple copies of the book she authored, Song of a Captive Bird.

On November 12, 2022, Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP), in collaboration with the CCA Center for Art and Public Life, ARTogether, and Diaspora Arts Connection, presented Women! Life! Freedom! The Wind in My Hair, showcasing art performances, music, murals, and poetry by Iranian artists and allies in the Bay Area and beyond, standing in solidarity with Iranian women calling for the end of oppression by the state of Iran.

The Wind In My Hair was organized by Katayoun Bahrami and presented by Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP), in collaboration with the CCA Center for Art and Public Life, ARTogether, and Diaspora Arts Connection. The event featured:

Introduction by Kyoko Sato

New murals by Farnaz Zabetian, Keyvan Shovir, Katayoun Bahrami, and Megan Wilson

Art performances by Mobina Nouri, Florencia Montefalcone / Katayoun Bahrami

Sound performance by Sholeh Asgary

Music performances by Nima Sepehr, and Mohammad Talani

Poetry by Jazmin Darznik

An interactive conversation by Badri Valian

Live poster printing and free posters by the San Francisco Poster Syndicate

Sound engineering by Michael Mersereau; Documentation by Narges Poursadeqi, Nazy Kaviani, and Vahid Zamani; tea and sweets by Tracy Tanner and the CCA Center for Art and Public Life; and technical support from Artists’ Television Access and the Community Thrift Store.

The event was well recieved drawing a great crowd.