I lived in the Mission for 14 years from 1995 to 2007. During that time I watched the neighborhood slowly change from a place where people moved to for cheap rent and work space to one of affluence and all the trappings that come with that. ATA had always been a source of gravity for the arts in the area and living one block away I attended many great shows there. In 2007 the building I had lived in was purchased by an investor and my roommates and I, knowing they were going to ask us to leave, cut a deal and I moved to Oakland. The flip side of this trend for me during those years, though, was that as a carpenter my livelihood depended on the same affluent demographic purchasing and renovating the many Victorian houses in the area. Thus was the contradiction for me.
This piece, like much of my work, is a formal geometric investigation. However, it’s made out of the same Victorian moulding I installed for my job while living here. The design of the piece was chosen to emulate architectural structures like castle walls, armories and (to some degree) the Pentagon. This shape of the piece is about the protection of wealth; the fortification of its preservation for the very few at the center. I left the piece unfinished and a difficult-to-navigate small channel to the inner area of the piece maybe with the hope that someday those who inhabit the inner area will understand the folly of what it is to be walled in by affluence and the people on the outside can participate in having some of the security that an influx of resources can bring.
Randy Colosky is an artist who lives and works in Oakland. For more information, please visit: http://www.rjcarts.com/.
Amreeka chronicles the adventures of Muna, a single mother who leaves the Palestinian West Bank with Fadi, her teenage son, with dreams of an exciting future in the promised land of small town Illinois. In America, as her son navigates high school hallways the way he used to move through military checkpoints, the indomitable Muna scrambles together a new life cooking up falafel burgers as well as hamburgers at the local White Castle.