Design Dash

West Oakland has long been a center of systemic exclusion. Once a thriving African American community, it is now a struggling area due to historic redlining, an intrusive highway system, pollution from the Port of Oakland, and dilapidated infrastructure. Just north of downtown, the area finds itself sandwiched between gentrification hotspots as a result of…

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Orange Mound Gallery

The Orange Mound neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee, has a rich history as one of the first communities in the country for African American to establish and settle a community through homeownership in the late nineteenth century. In appreciation of that history, creative community members wanted to create a space for arts produced by and reflective…

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The Big Zipper

Over the course of the summer of 2015, the Meadville Neighborhood Center and Steve Prince, artist in residence at Allegheny College, initiated the summer-long collaborative art project. Mr. Prince cut zipper pieces – that is, the individual prongs of a zipper – out of wood and distributed them to community members at 25 wood carving…

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