Tending The Soil: Black August

A month-long meditation on the past, present, and future of Black revolutionary struggles. Black August’s origins lie within the organization and activism of incarcerated peoples in California. JXTA continues this tradition of unification against prisons and mass incarceration through a series of community dinners co-hosted by community organizer Roxanne O’Brien, local non-profit Better Futures, and printmaker Ricardo Levins Morales. 

Tending The Soil: Black August also includes an exhibition of original artwork dedicated to the principles of Black August created by JXTA apprentices from Contemporary and Public Arts Lab.

All Black August dinners are free and open to the public and will take place from 5:30PM to 8:00PM in the JXTA Gallery (2007 Emerson Ave. N)

August 3 – with Roxanne O’Brien and Better Futures
August 10 – with Ricardo Levins Morales
August 17 – with Juxtaposition Arts Apprentices

About the Exhibition

Tending The Soil: Black August features work by youth and young adult apprentices in Juxtaposition Arts’ Contemporary and Public Art Lab and explores the ideas of seed harvest and change. The apprentices write: 

The seeds are our ideas, thoughts, and concepts that can grow into something larger, such as changes and movement. The exhibition is rooted in the idea that the soil–our social environment in which dreams and ideas are planted–must first be tended to. By investigating and then unpacking the narratives surrounding issues such as police brutality, the prison industrial complex, the ethical treatment of prisoners, and imagining a future without police within our communities, we have the power to shift the conditions in which these seeds grow. We have the power to cultivate our own soil, a more balanced soil, for healthier growth.

Exhibition features work from these JXTA Contemporary and Public Arts Lab Apprentices:
Cameron Downey
Cecilia Andrade-Vital
Daria Harris
Jesús Vega
Justice Jones
Kachina Henry
Kylia Porter
Makeda Parrish
Maria Romansov
Rondell Jackson
Salem Murre Savitri Mann Treon Jones Tyreke Morris

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IC: Linocut print by Rondell Jackson, Contemporary/Public Arts Lab Apprentice