A Mexican American boy who uses music to spread joy. A Yemeni girl named Gaza who uses the flowers on her dress to stop crime. A DJ who spins music at West Oakland block parties to uplift his neighbors. A superhero who uses his powers to put out fires and pick up trash.
These are a few of the characters you’ll see as you drive, bike, or walk beneath the Interstate 580 overpasses in West Oakland along 35th street. Over the past 12 years, dozens of Oakland youth have worked with local muralists and the Center for ArtEsteem to create a series of pieces visualizing themselves as superheroes in their neighborhoods.
“It really gives them the power to think about the things in their immediate environments and reflect on things that need to be changed. Instead of ignoring them and thinking, ‘Oh, this is the way it is,’ they’re imagining a future without those problems and imagining themselves with the power to do something about it.”
Etty Alberto, artistic development manager at the Center for ArtEsteem
The Center for ArtEsteem, founded in 1989 as the Attitudinal Healing Connection, conceptualized the Oakland Super Heroes Mural Project in 2012 as a way to beautify the area and teach young people about public art. The group has worked with Hoover Elementary School, West Oakland Middle School, Westlake Middle School, and McClymonds High School to create four murals, with a fifth one coming this year.
The idea of envisioning oneself as a superhero came from the center’s executive director and daughter of the co-founder Amana Harris, who created a curriculum around the concept. The organization was originally located on 33rd and West streets, and staff and visitors would walk through the underpasses on a regular basis. Eventually, they got the idea to brighten up their own backyard.
“Part of our goal is looking at how we beautify our communities. We look at art as a way to build self-esteem and deepen our understanding about how to communicate with one another.”
Amana Harris, the executive director of the Center for ArtEsteem
What began as a way to give life to a drab area has become a decadelong project involving West Oakland students and a crash course in civic engagement. They’ve gone to city council meetings to get approvals, negotiated public art applications with Caltrans, and written to their state senator’s office for help.
The murals have to contend with the course of life in a disinvested city neighborhood. Homeless encampments have sprung up on the sidewalks in front of the murals. Fires from the encampments have torched the paintings. Graffiti artists have added some unwanted augmentations.
Artist Senay “Refa” Dennis is working to restore mural No. 2, which had been tagged over multiple times and had debris and trash littered along the sidewalk in front of it.
“When you see something you put a labor of love into begin to deteriorate to the degree that it did, it can be hurtful and frustrating. Especially when it’s something that is giving so much inspiration to the community. But there was excitement once I heard from Amana that there was an opportunity to bring it back to life.”
Senay “Refa” Dennis, lead mural artist
The restoration is expected to finish by the end of June, and mural No. 5 is expected to begin later this year, with lead artist Pancho Pescador.
Mural No. 3 has seen the worst of all. In 2015, artist Antonio Ramos was shot and killed while working on the piece, which was created with students from West Oakland Middle School. Oakland police previously said Ramos had been taking a break from painting and got into a confrontation over his camera equipment. The shooter was sentenced in 2018 to 25 years to life.
Today, an encampment sits in front of the mural. Catch it at the right angle and something poignant happens–the two-dimensional windows and doors of the mural join with the tent and the makeshift lighting of the encampment to create the sense of a cozy, house-lined neighborhood, the whole scene tended by Planteen, one of the twin superheroes, and her watering can.
“We want people when they’re walking by, biking by, driving by, to be enraptured by the beauty that Oakland students have created,” said Munirah Harris, the operations associate at the center. “For people to be in awe of the beauty of Oakland.”
Note: This article was updated to include the lead artists for each of the murals.
