Tarpestry – a mobile “Resilience Art” Project of The Cardboard and Concrete Collective
Since 2016, the Village in Oakland has facilitated mural projects at the curbside communities we created/lived in, or supported. We beautify the informal settlements using the perimeter fences or tiny homes we built as canvas. Unfortunately, evictions have destroyed almost all our murals.
We are moving to a portable solution: murals on prepared weather-proofed canvas. Not only are primed canvases a practical water/weather proofing solution, the murals can avoid bulldozing and be put up at the next site people call home.
Over the next two years, The Cardboard & Concrete Collective will be taking over these artistic beautification efforts at curbside communities. The Collective will be working to create 12 mobile murals in 12 curbside communities in Oakland, and 3 mobile murals in three Berkley informal settlements.
The Tarpetries Project has the additional element of a political education curriculum that explores the root causes of homelessness; how homelessness became a crime and the need to decriminalize homelessness; know your rights trainings; civic engagement; decolonization off the streets; and eviction defense of their settlements.
The project will spend 2 months with each encampment , with a total 15 encampments over the next two years.