Regenerative Practices | Group Selection Prep

November 4, 2017

In this session we’ll explore how we can make arts administration more sustainable? What can we do as individuals to renew our energy and passion? What can we do as a network to support each other? And what can we do as leaders of programs and organizations to encourage a healthier arts and culture  ecosystem?

Location: City Slicker Farm Park, 2847 Peralta St, Oakland, CA 94608

*Guest Facilitator: Dia Penning | Day of Logistics + Support: Rena Nishijima, cell in case you NEED to find her: 408-250-1846

Skills Development Objectives:

  • Developing sustainability practices
  • Adaptability / Group Communication and adjustments
  • Articulating personal/professional goals and strengths

Agenda Outline: 9:30am – light breakfast, 10am – Program begins, 12:30pm – lunch provided, 4pm – day ends

  1. Settling into the space
  2. Reflection in small groups
  3. “Open Space” – Share a skill / passion part II
  4. Guest Speakers: Ashara, Trisha, Marvin
  5. Lunch
  6. Focus Area activity / exploration: Facilitated conversation on individual & team capacity 
  7. Closing with intention

Guest Speakers

Ashara Ekundayo

Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Impact Hub Oakland  

Ashara Ekundayo is a cultural strategist, independent curator, serial entrepreneur and connector of the urban landscape who facilitates the creation of “collaboratory” spaces where methodology amplifying the intersections of social permaculture, social entrepreneurship, and social justice can be manifested. Considered a thought-leader and strategic executor, she honed her business skills in the non-profit arts sector and is often found organizing and moderating at the intersections of spirituality, sustainable design, and impact.  Through her company AECreative she consults with organizations to assess and build capacity for equitable community engagement through the uses of mindfulness, creative arts practice, exhibition, and project management.

In 2012, Ashara Co-Founded Impact Hub Oakland, an innovation incubator and co-working community, and brought to fruition Omi Gallery, both creative enterprises committed to the social, cultural, economic and political liberation of people of color, women and girls, and the LGTBQ community.  In her role as Chief Creative Officer and Curator she designs, produces and listens for place-based solutions revealed through a multiplicity of gatherings often with unlikely allies. Recent projects include the Bay Area “Breaking the Silence” Town Hall on Girls & Women of Color, “Survival Pending Revolution: The Black Panther Party at 50” exhibition, and the “Art + Race Conference.”

Currently she holds Advisory Board positions with KQED Arts, Black Girls Code, the and the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, and has served as a Fellow with Green For All, Emerging Arts Professionals, Schools Without Borders and Institute For The Future.  Ashara is also a Certified Permaculture Designer, Certified Foresight Practitioner, and a Graduate of Thousand Currents Leadership Academy.

Ashara’s commitment to social transformation is informed by an intersectional framework that aims to expand the influence and impact of arts and culture on racial equity, gender+justice, and environmental literacy.

Trisha Barua

Doctoral Candidate, Cultural Studies, University of California, Davis

Trisha Barua is a doctoral candidate in Cultural Studies at University of California, Davis. She works at the intersection of art history, ethnic studies, and urban humanities. Her dissertation project, “Utopic Oakland: Imaginaries of Racial Capitalism,” examines post-Proposition 13 Oakland as the site of unrealized plans for racial and political progress. By exposing the consolidation of (and resistance to) white supremacy in America’s most progressive and diverse city, she aims to disentangle connections between racialization, cultural economies, and urban development. Alongside her scholarly endeavors, Trisha is an emerging Reiki healer. By integrating this gentle energy healing modality with an intersectional praxis, she works with people who seek to release the embodied traumas of white supremacy, capitalism, heterosexism, and patriarchy. She has recently collaborated with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, EastSide Arts Alliance, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Before graduate school, she worked as a direct-services advocate at an anti-domestic violence agency serving Seattle’s South Asian community. Trisha has a BA in American Culture and History of Art from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Marvin K. White

Public Theologian in Residence, First Church Berkeley 

Marvin K. White, MDiv, is a graduate of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA and the inaugural Public Theologian in Residence (’17-’18) at First Church Berkeley. A former Pastor Associate at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, Marvin is currently an arts liaison and a co-facilitator of the “Faith Leaders Round Table” at The Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society. He is the author of four collections of poetry published by RedBone Press: Our Name Be Witness; Status; and the two Lammy-nominated collections last rights and nothin’ ugly fly. A public theologian and community-based artist, he is articulating a vision of social, prophetic and creative justice through his work as a poet, artist, teacher, facilitator, activist, community organizer, preacher, homemaker, cake baker, and Facebook Statustician.

Dia Penning

Director of Curriculum and Education, World Trust

Dia Penning, has held leadership positions at the Columbia College Chicago, the San Francisco Arts Commission and California College of the Arts: Center for Art and Public Life. She designs experiences to examine complex intersections, placing those most marginalized at the center of inquiry, using creativity, breath, movement, and story.

Readings & Assignments

Optional:

Watch  Build a Tower, Build a Team Tom Wujac

Project Team Info: