Through June 26 - Minoosh Zomorodinia: Made Lands at Local Language
I'm very happy that Oakland creative studio and fabrication shop Local Language was able to restart their artist-in-residence program earlier this spring, and the current show by Minoosh Zomorodinia is a real beauty. Zomorodinia began mapping her walks in 2016 when the xenophobic new administration unsettled her visa status. She started transforming the data points on her phone into physical objects both to lay claim to her adopted land and to reference the legacy of colonization in the United States in general and in California in particular. In this exhibition Zomorodinia continues to use those paths to investigate how the process of capturing memories on our digital devices affects our recall of past events, as in the My Ziggurat series in which she builds up layers like the ancient architecture from her Persian heritage and paints the resulting structures with gold leaf as if a monument to memory itself. And while you're in the neighborhood I recommend grabbing a bite at Forage Kitchen across the street and then heading down to West Grand to see Sheila Ghidini's deconstructed/reconstructed furniture at Gearbox Galley, another smart take on the concept of reassembly.
Other things I liked this week:
- The Sediments of Time: My Lifelong Search for the Past by Meave Leakey and Samira Leakey. Meave Leakey is foremost a brilliant paleontologist, and she also has a remarkable grasp of sociology, zoology, chemistry, genetics, climate science...the list goes on and on. I loved hearing the stories about her important discoveries in Africa, and she also begins and ends with some strong words about the survival of our species if we don't change our current self-destructive ways.
- Hooligan Sparrow by Nanfu Wang. This documentary about Chinese human rights activist Ye Haiyan is a portrait in courage both of the feminists in China defying their government to demand change, and of the filmmaker herself, who had to stay one step ahead of the police and smuggle her footage out of China.
- For Memorial Day Sunday I took public transit over to the city, picked up cheese-on-a-stick and boba tea from Stix, and had a picnic lunch by a pond in Stern Grove. Highly recommended.
- Seeing Silicon Valley: Life inside a Fraying America by Mary Beth Meehan and Fred Turner. I attended a virtual talk with Meehan and Turner and their University of Chicago Press editor Joseph Calamia on Wednesday and was inspired to immediately buy their book. The talk should be up on the Press's YouTube channel soon.
- To celebrate Pride Month Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society hosted a wonderful talk Wednesday evening with Jennifer Rycenga, one of the founders of Queer Birders of North America. Queer Birds: Community Inclusion, Community Building, and Community Science is available here.
- This year's ODC Theater Festival is all-virtual and features an impressive line-up of artists who showcase how good dance can look on film. I caught the opening night program on Thursday and especially loved the short pieces by the ODC Theater Opportunity Fund Artists.
- In honor of Black Birders Week this last week I recommend seeking out Annie Kaempfer's documentary The Falconer about Rodney Scotts's mission to provide access to nature for his community.
- Yesterday I kidnapped my friend Zach and headed off to McLaren Park for Psychopomp, the new outdoor theater walk from We Players specifically formulated for pandemic times. It was a magical and transcendent experience and then we went and outdoor dined at Red Window and that was most excellent too.