Intergalactic Blvd: An Oakland Portal an exhibition by Rigo 23 and Collaborators
Rigo 23’s Intergalactic Boulevard - an Oakland Portal is a project rooted in radical solidarity among people and communities in the anti-capitalist and anti-colonial struggles. Inspired by the Zapatista concept of Intergalacticism and the Black Panther Party’s concept of Intercommunalism, this project opens an intergalactic portal at Eastside Arts Alliance that aims to connect people and movements within E14th Street, Oakland and around the world to each other - through art, poetry and shared strategies.
InterGalactic Boulevard - an Oakland Portal incorporates sculpture, embroidery, drawing, painting, time based movement and spoken word to create an immersive installation at East Side Arts Alliance - 2285 Gallery and in collaborating venues across a vast geographical reach.
Rigo 23 and his many collaborators re-imagine International Boulevard as Intergalactic Boulevard, a location for an autonomous portal for intercommunal connection. Acknowledging the deep history and connections people have with International Blvd. (formerly known as East 14th Street), Intergalactic Blvd invites the community to envision East Oakland as the epicenter for intercommunal and intergalactic solidarity; with visual art and poetry deeply intertwined with grassroots community organizing; enlisting images and sounds as mighty allies in the struggles for autonomy and self-determination, countering colonial, capitalist, racist, white supremacist and patriarchal systems.
The aim of the Portal at Intergalactic Boulevard is to provide a space for connection, dialogue and contemplation. The focus is both on the local and the intergalactic, as such this project will engage people, communities, and organizations that call International Blvd. home, as well as the far reaches of our imaginings. Through a mapping and socially engaged approach this project invites people to contribute stories about their lives and perspectives on International Boulevard. Moreover, through collaborations with Oakland-based artists and organizations this exhibition will connect and mark the extensive grassroots networks that make up Oakland’s strong revolutionary movements. In a wider scope, this project will develop collaborations with artists and organizations in other geographies - namely, Chiapas, Havana and Viena.
For this exhibition and programming series, Rigo 23 will showcase artworks resulting from a wide ranging series of collaborations - the still incarcerated human rights defender Leonard Peltier; Indigenous Chiapas, Mexico, based artists involved in the ongoing process set in motion by the EZLN - Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional; contemporary urban Bay Area artists and organizations; freed members of the Black Panther Party, namely the Angola-3; and other organizations including Pro-Arts and Chiapas Support Committee in Oakland; Centro Bahia, in Havana, Cuba; Galeria Muy, in San Cristobal de Las Casas, México and the WeltMuseum, in Vienna, Austria.
Intergalactic Blvd. is an extension of Rigo 23’s Autonomous Intergalactic Space Program (AISP), an art collaboration with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas that attempts to realize the possibilities of intercommunal and intergalactic dialogue through art that give shape and voice to the Zapatista community’s struggle for autonomy in the face of globalization. The planetary constellations and vegetal spacecrafts that form the basis of the art piece, illustrate the Zapatista’s radical politics, its belief in the ability to overcome the constraints of time and space, and its commitment to the redistribution of land ownership.
The Intergalactic Space Program is currently on view at the Welt Museum in Vienna, Austria as part of the exhibition, Science Fiction(s): If There Were a Tomorrow.
Intergalactic Blvd. and all related public programs and events are made possible with generous funding from California Arts Council and The Zellerbach Family Foundation, and produced in collaboration between Pro Arts Gallery & COMMONS and East Side Arts Alliance.
