In response to the devastating cultural and economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and the restrictions on indoor gatherings and events in Alameda County, Black Joy StoryWindows was an effort to create a safe, outdoor, walkable and driveable, multimedia storefront gallery experience in the heart of downtown Oakland and simultaneously keeps alive, and in the community’s consciousness, the power and beauty of the Black Joy Parade, an annual parade that follows the same footprint as our StoryWindows project.

A curated multimedia art walk In the heart of downtown Oakland

ashara ekundayo

curator

Black Joy StoryWindows celebrate and amplify the collective and unstoppable energy that is Black Joy in Oakland! This self-guided, multi-media, public art exhibition spans 3 city blocks, 30+ storefronts, and highlights the artwork of more than 25 local Black photographers, muralists, designers, and filmmakers.

With images from the Black Joy Parade, OAK FamBam, Life Is Living, and the archives of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Black Joy StoryWindows invite the viewers to reflect upon “what brings you joy?” and to remember the powerful legacy of resistance and resilience unique to The Town.

Additionally, Black Joy StoryWindows provides a Covid19-safe, outdoor, walkable gallery experience that is beautiful and that supports the small businesses and cultural institutions with increased foot traffic and retail sales.

Black Joy StoryWindows is Co-Presented by Oakland Central by the Black Joy Parade and ArtistAsFirstResponder.com

All Power to The People!

In Black Joy and Wellness, Ashara Ekundayo, Curator

30+ Storefronts in
downtown oakland

Black Joy StoryWindows was a curated, self-guided
multi-media public art exhibition that was installed in
30+ storefront businesses located along a three-block stretch of downtown Oakland highlighting the artwork of more than 35 local Black artists and Black-led arts and cultural organizations and businesses. Black Joy StoryWindows was presented by the Downtown Oakland Association/Oakland Central* in collaboration with the Black Joy Parade and Artist As First Responder in association with independent curator and public art advisor Ashara Ekundayo. The Black Joy StoryWindows exhibition officially ran from June 19th until December 19th, 2021, and consisted of four (4) large scale murals, over fifty (50) large scale window decals, ten (10) 75 inch video monitors, one (1) statue, and two (2) multimedia storefront installations.

The importance and symbolism of the location for this project was a critical element of the project and cannot be overemphasized. This three-block stretch of our downtown historically has been ground zero for decades of protest and civil unrest in response to violence and injustice in our city and around the world.

Virtual Tour

THE CATHEDRAL BUILDING

1615 Broadway

BLACK JOY PARADE

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Rumors of War

1615 Broadway

Kehinde WileY

Rumors of War is a series of artworks by Kehinde Wiley examining equestrian portraiture in the canon of Western art history culminating in a bronze monumental equestrian statue by the artist of an African-American young man (with dreadlocks in a ponytail, jeans ripped at the knees and Nike high-top sneakers), created in response to the statue of Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart in Richmond, Virginia in particular and similar statues of high-ranking Confederate Army officers, some of which still stand in the United States despite persistent calls for their removal.

THE ROTUNDA BUILDING

300 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza

SEIZE THE TIME | WHAT BRINGS YOU JOY

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REFA1

“Style Writing and mural painting are expressions of my soul. I create from a place of unconditional love for African people. My goal is to translate the visual landscape of struggling African communities.”
​ -Refa One

SENAY
ALKEBU-LAN

Senay Alkebu-Lan is a multidisciplinary artist from west Oakland, California whose practice employs fashion design, photography, film, illustration, graphic design & community engagement. he is the founder and creative director of madow futur.

AWAKEN CAFE

1429 Broadway

RIC OMPHROY | CARLOS WILBORN

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DARKER GODS

1427 Broadway

DAMON DAVIS | BETTI ONO GALLERY

Darker Gods is a project that began in 2015 when I was interrogating ideas around the Black experience in popular culture. I started to think that the representation of Blackness in the United States and the greater Western world was about devaluing the complexity of our experiences to make it easier to dehumanize us. There seems to only be two ways people of color have shown up historically in the collective consciousness: either as sub-human or superhuman—not ever as complex human beings the way that white-identifying people are allowed to be portrayed. As the project grew and evolved, I decided that instead of working hard to show Black people themselves from an empirical, reality-based model, I wanted to lean it the tropes and cultural norms of our experience by exaggerating them to a place of the supernatural and the surreal.

DAMON DAVIS

Damon Davis is an award-winning,
post-disciplinary artist who works and resides in St. Louis, Missouri. In a practice that is part therapy, part social commentary, his work spans across a spectrum of creative mediums to tell stories exploring how identity is informed by power and mythology. Davis seeks to empower and give voice to the powerless and combat systems of oppression, focusing not only on pain but also on the joy of the Black experience.

BIG OAKLAND

1423 Broadway

TURFIN | ALICE IN OAKLAND

LOVE CLUB: ALICE IN OAKLAND

BY PATANISHA ALI

Fueled by the Power of Love, the Pata Ali Love Club is a Social Enterprise that provides creative production services that enhance community health using customized programming that support Intergenerational Bonding, Media and Artistic Expression.
TURFIN
BY JERIEL BEY
Turfing (or turf dancing) is a form of American street dance that originated in Oakland, California by youth from West Oakland and organized by dancer Jeriel Bey coined the name “turf dancing” aka Turfin and named his Organization The Architeckz™. Bey is the author of the acronym for Taking Up Room on the Floor. The style was originally known by the terms “having fun with it” or “hitting it”, but these names didn’t seem marketable. However, another claim for the nomenclature considers the acronym as a backronym and that turf dancing originated as a way to describe dances that different “turfs” (locations or territories) from Oakland performed to represent where they were from (the same as “blocks” or “sets”). The dance form had its earliest influences in the Boogaloo movement of the mid-1960s, but it developed into a distinctive dance style.

DOWNTOWN WINE MERCHANTS

102 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza

LIFE IS LIVING

1400 BROADWAY

AKONADI FOUNDATION

CARPE DIEM
GUS’S WORLD-FAMOUS FRIED CHICKEN

1430 Broadway

SO OAKLAND | I LOVE BEING BLACK KOLA
SHOBO | CIA GOULD

I LOVE BEING BLACK

SO OAKLAND

CIA GOULD

KOLA SHOBO

QUIVX

1450 Broadway

510 MEDIA | NANA KOFI NTI

what is black joy?

METRO PCS

1460 Broadway

BLACK TERMINUS | WAKANDA DREAM LABS
ARTWORK BY AMIR KHADAR
A/R BY CALVIN WILLIAMS
ARTWORK & A/R
BY DAMIEN MCDUFFIE
Install the Artivive app and view the artwork through your smartphone

1500 BROADWAY

KOLA | DARK STAR UNIVERSE | WAKANDA DREAM LABS | BLACK TERMINUS

KOLA

BY THE PEOPLES CONSERVATORY

A re-envisioned version of The Nutcracker through the lens of African and Afro-Latinx music, dance, theater, and culture reflecting the lives of Black and Brown children socially, politically, and spiritually in modern-day Oakland.

1460 Broadway

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DARK STAR UNIVERSE

BY TOWN FUTURIST MEDIA AND REFA1

A re-envisioned version of The Nutcracker through the lens of African and Afro-Latinx music, dance, theater, and culture reflecting the lives of Black and Brown children socially, politically, and spiritually in modern-day Oakland.

“WE ARE GOING TO KEEP STRUGGLING FOR BRIGHTER DAYS WE ARE GOING TO KEEP STRUGGLING UNTIL WE WIN YOUR LOVE.”

 EMORY DOUGLAS
ARTWORK BY EMORY DOUGLAS

Taken from the October 4, 1971 issue of the Black Panther intercommunal News service

Augmented Reality (A/R) features by Black Terminus AR
 
View this artwork in Augmented Reality by Downloading ARTIVIVE APP
Install the Artivive app and view the artwork through your smartphone
screenshot-8.png
ARTWORK BY AMIR KHADAR
A/R BY CALVIN WILLIAMS
 
Install the Artivive app and view the artwork through your smartphone

WESTERN DENTAL

1530 Broadway

OAKLAND PUBLIC CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
 
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PIANO FIGHT

1540 Broadway

LOWER BOTTOM PLAYAZ, INC

Lower Bottom Playaz, Inc
Lower Bottom Playaz, Inc was founded in 1999 by
Dr. Ayodele Nzinga is dedicated to the excavation, critical examination, and illumination of the conditions of NorthAmerican cities and the lived realities of disenfranchised communities through the creation of originals works, production of materials available from the North American African canon, and the works of artists

considered marginalized and/or whose works center Blackness.

Lower bottom Playaz is the only troupe to produce August Wilson’s American Century Cycle which is a collection of ten plays that chronicle a collective century of the Black American experience, with each of the plays set in a different decade spanning the 20th century.

1544 BROADWAY

OAKLAND PUBLIC CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC

The Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, founded in 2005 by Musician/Educator Dr. Angela M. Wellman and centers African American culture in the development American musical culture and identity. Their programs celebrate, preserve, and extend the musical heritage of the people of Oakland and the broader Bay Area by providing affordable, world-class musical education for people of all ages.

“Preservation Through Music Education”

1700 BROADWAY

PAN AFRICAN FESTIVAL | OAK FAM BAM

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PROSPECT PARK

1633 Broadway

BLACK JOY PARADE

SOUL PROVISIONS

1629 Broadway

PAUL LEWIN

1621 BROADWAY

MADOW FUTUR

PARTICIPATING ARTISTs

Artists

BINTA AYOFEMI
CALVIN WILLIAMS
DAMIEN MCDUFFIE
EMORY DOUGLAS
KEHINDE WILEY
PAUL LEWIN
REFA ONE

Photographers

ANGELA WELLMAN
ANTHONY WEAVER
BRYAN MALIK
BRYAN HARRIS
CARLOS WILBORN
CIA GOULD
DEMONDRE WARD
KOLA SHOBO
KUMI RAUF
NANA KOFI NTI
NICK JAMES
RIC OMPHROY
 

Videographers/Filmmakers

ELI FANTUZZI-JACOBS
510MEDIA
JERIEL BEY
KORISE JUBERT
MAUTON AKRAN
PATA ALI
REFA ONE
SHAKA JAMAL

Curator

ASHARA EKUNDAYO

Partners

Business

AARDVARK ENGRAVING
AWAKEN CAFE
BIG OAKLAND
BOTH SIDES CONVENIENCE STORE
DARLINGS ELIXIR
DOWNTOWN WINE MERCHANTS
GUS’S WORLD FAMOUS FRIED CHICKEN
METRO BY T-MOBILE
PROSPECT PARK GRILLE
SHIBA RAMEN
SOUL PROVISIONS
WESTERN DENTAL
PIANO FIGHT

Venue Partners

CATHEDRAL BUILDING
CCIG/ROTUNDA BUILDING
DAVID WELTIN
ENERGY-SOLUTION
HIGHBRIDGE
HP INVESTORS
JORDAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS
LMC: A LENNAR COMPANY
SHONA ARMSTRONG, ESQ.
TIDEWATER CAPITAL

Organizations

BETTI ONO
510MEDIA
I LOVE BEING BLACK
LIFE IS LIVING/YOUTH SPEAKS
LOWER BOTTOM PLAYAZ
MADOW FUTUR CLOTHING CO.
OAKLAND PUBLIC CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC
PATA ALI LOVE CLUB
SO OAKLAND
THE PEOPLE’S CONSERVATORY/KOLA
TOWN FUTURIST
TURF INC.

Supporters

AAA FLAG AND BANNER
AKONADI FOUNDATION
BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT BUSINESS DISTRICT
CITY OF OAKLAND – PUBLIC ART ADVISORY COMMITTEE
CITY OF OAKLAND – HUMAN SERVICES DEPT. RECAST GRANT
GROUND
KINDRED ARTS
MANNEQUIN MADNESS
OAKLAND FIREFIGHTERS UNION
OAKLAND VENUE MANAGEMENT
3RD EAR SOUND

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