SGVCC Exhibit 2022 – Painting for the Future

SGVCC Exhibit 2022 – Painting for the Future

SGVCC Exhibit 2022 – Painting for the Future

Climate Strike for Climate Justice

September, 2019 – San Francisco Financial District

COMMUNITIES COMING TOGETHER FOR THE FUTURE

…With Paint

A major component of Climate and Environmental Justice rallies around the Bay Area is often the painting of beautiful giant street murals.  Some of these murals are truly massive, shutting down multiple huge city blocks and in September 2018, completely encircling San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza (plus some).

These giant murals often consist of dozens of smaller circular murals that are then “woven” together with a triangular pattern that was inspired by the basketry traditions of native California.  Each of these smaller circular murals is designed and painted by a different community group or organization, and represents their unique vision of Climate Justice realities or envisions what a healthier future might look like.

The paint used is non-toxic, some of it made from ash and charcoal from CA wildfires, some of it clay based from the CA foothills and some of it tempera.  

These inspiring murals, guided by the incredible artist/organizer David Solnit, bring together dozens of community groups and hundreds of people of all ages and backgrounds, to share their unique visions for a healthier future.

SGVCC Exhibit 2022 – Climate & Environmental Justice

SGVCC Exhibit 2022 – Climate & Environmental Justice

SGVCC Exhibit 2022 – Climate & Environmental Justice

“PROTECT WATER, CLIMATE & COMMUNITIES”

September, 2019 – San Francisco Financial District

At 7:30 am, Native Women with Idle No More SF Bay lead a long march of Climate Justice activists up Montgomery Street, in the heart of the San Francisco Financial District, to shut down the street and blockade the banks that are financing the fossil fuel industry and threatening future generations and the health of the planet.

Over the course of the day, beautiful giant street murals would be painted covering 2 long city blocks, envisioning solutions to the climate crisis.

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

The Bay Area is home to a large, vibrant and diverse community of Climate and Environmental Justice activists.  Their campaigns bring attention to both local and global issues.

Locally, the East Bay Refinery Corridor is home to numerous oil refineries and related industries, and San Francisco is a global financial center to many banks and investment institutions that finance the fossil fuel industry.  Frontline communities from Contra Costa County to Bayview Hunters Point and Treasure Island are speaking out about the Environmental Justice issues their communities are facing.

Powerful Youth and Indigenous Women led campaigns also work to tie local issues to broader campaigns for Climate Justice, Indigenous Sovereignty and the health of future generations.  Financial institutions are being challenged both in the streets and in the board rooms, for their investments in industries that hurt communities and the planet.

“No Forest Offsets!”

September 2018 – Global Climate Action Summit

San Francisco

An indigenous leader from Brazil joins thousands of indigenous and non-indigenous people in the streets of San Francisco outside a global climate conference organized by then Governor, Jerry Brown.  The message from the streets to those in the conference:  perceived Climate Solutions that cater to corporate interests in the global north often result in the forced displacement of the indigenous communities in the global south who have been caring for the land since time immemorial.

 

 

“Stop Environmental Racism”

April 23 (Earth Day), 2022

San Francisco

On Earth Day this year, a huge energized gathering of Bay Area Youth called for Climate Justice for the neglected communities of Bayview Hunters Point and Treasure Island and for the immediate cleanup of toxic and radioactive waste left from the sites’ naval shipyards.

CalSTRS – Divest from Fossil Fuels!

(California State Teachers’ Retirement System)

January 30, 2020 – Sacramento, CA

Young people drenched in fake ‘oil’ and an oil tanker on wheels were pulled down the Capital Mall in Sacramento to CalSTRS headquarters, to protest CalSTRS $6BILLION investment in fossil fuel holdings.  Youth groups and environmental groups have been pressuring the CalSTRS Board for years to “Divest from fossil fuels and Invest in the future”.

“Urgent” – CalSTRS Board Meeting
Youth March: State Capital to CalSTRS
Davis youth at CalSTRS
“Future On Fire”

October 29, 2021

DEFUND CLIMATE CHAOS!

BlackRock’s San Francisco headquarters

“RISE For Climate Justice”

September, 2018 

Global Climate Action Summit

San Francisco

 

Organized by Indigenous and Frontline communities, hundreds gathered outside the Governors’ Climate and Forest Task Force meeting leading up to the Global Climate Action Summit, to demand an end to false solutions that allow continued harm to their communities.

 

Photography Exhibit

Photography Exhibit

San Geronimo Valley Community Center – September, 2022

From the streets of Oakland and San Francisco, to the Guapinol community in Honduras, the Anishinaabe in Minnesota, and the fenceline communities of the Bay Area refinery corridor…  unique and yet intertwined stories of communities protecting what they need to survive and creatively building towards a world where they can thrive.

This exhibit was tied in with a month of activities at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center related to the UN International Day of Peace on September 24th.  On the 23rd, I had the very great pleasure of sharing my exhibit with the middle schoolers at Lagunitas Middle School… about 75 6th, 7th and 8th graders. I was able to share with them a wide range of social justice stories and some really creative/beautiful actions happening around the Bay Area that involve many different communities fighting for change.  Their very thoughtful questions and observations seemed to reflect sparks of genuine interest and curiosity.

Thanks so much to Cory VanGelder and Greenstitch Climate Action for making this happen!

SGVCC Exhibit 2022 – Climate & Environmental Justice

Featured Stories – Climate Justice

Featured Stories – Climate Justice

Climate Justice – From the San Francisco Bay Area and Beyond

–  The Bay Area is home to passionate networks of creative energy in the fights for Climate Justice.  From community-building “Art Builds”, massive street murals and banners that span city blocks, to powerful indigenous women-led campaigns, rapidly growing youth led campaigns and “grandmothers” blockading city streets, many in the Bay Area have been tireless in taking on the industries that threaten our future and the huge networks and systems that support those industries.

These creative and passionate local networks are informally woven together with a vibrant global ecosystem of Climate Justice activism that has been growing relationships and cross-pollinating for decades.  The stories from frontline communities in the East Bay refinery corridor are woven together with the Ponca experience in the Oklahoma oil fields and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and Ecuador by the fossil fuel industry.  The networks of solidarity keep growing as the stories expose common themes and challenges and identify the global nature of the threats to our health, the planet and future generations.

This weaving together of many unique groups and communities in a common climate justice related project, can be seen visually represented in the massive street mural projects organized by David Solnit together with hundreds of others since 2018.  Covering huge city blocks, groups design and paint their unique visions into circles that are then “woven” together with an indigenous inspired basket pattern designed by Edward Willie and painted with paint created from clay gathered in the Sierra foothills.  This whole massive process is a beautiful representation of how to create the world we want to live in, while simultaneously drawing attention to and challenging the institutions and systems that threaten all of our futures.

 

Featured Stories – Racial Justice

Featured Stories – Racial Justice

Featured Stories – Racial Justice

Racial Justice

–  Underlying all these photos is a demand for fair and equal treatment of Black communities and accountability and justice when violations have been committed.

In December 2014, thousands marched through the streets of Oakland in the Millions March.  All races were well represented demanding justice following the failure to indict white police officers in the killing of two unarmed black men, Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York.

In 2015, the movement to Reclaim MLK’s Radical Legacy was born.  In Oakland, CA, the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) uses this framing to organize huge marches and rallies on MLK Day and “brings together thousands of people across race, class and political ideology with a commitment to build a just and equitable Oakland that Dr. King would be proud of.  For decades, MLK’s legacy has been whitewashed. Often portrayed as a passive figure, in truth he was a radical leader demanding rational change: an end to capitalism, to war, to empire, to poverty, and to white supremacy. Communities in Oakland and across the country take this opportunity every year to celebrate the true spirit of this revolutionary. We intend to follow in his legacy through our campaign to defund the police and refund the community.”

In 2020, after the high profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery (among many others), massive spontaneous protests erupted all over the country.  The Black Lives Matter movement had, for years, been helping people to recognize the blatant injustices of policing in the US.  When the world watched Derek Chauvin kneel on George Floyd’s neck and back for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, the world knew and understood what it was seeing.