Arts & Entertainment
Downtown Richmond is a little brighter now thanks to the local muralists who participated in this year’s Bay Area Mural Festival. Rich City Rides is hosting a bike tour of the new murals this Sunday at 10 am.
The second annual Bay Area Mural Festival kicks of this week with 11 new social justice-themed murals and community events.
Some attendees said Spirit & Soul spoke to Richmond’s uncertain future. Folks certainly enjoyed the craft beer, barbecue, and kettle corn, and the inclusion of Richmond’s many nonprofits which helped make social justice a focal point of the afternoon.
It is the first day back since spring break. Alana Banks still has her tan from Barbados. She walks onto UC Berkeley’s campus behind Sproul Hall to the Fannie Lou Hamer Center, a small tin building named after the voting rights activist. If you weren’t familiar with the place, it would be easy to miss, as it is hidden behind the English department and to the far left of the art studio. Banks, who is from Oakland, is one of the co-founders of the center, which opened in February. It is the first space set aside as resource center for black students on UC Berkeley’s campus.
Last weekend, Richmond hosted the Pacific Sail and Power Boat Show for the second time. This celebration of all things seaworthy was held at the Craneway Pavilion and Marina Bay Yacht Harbor, housing over 400 exhibits, seminars and activities. After attracting thousands of guests from the San Fransisco Bay Area and beyond, the boat show will likely stay in Richmond for years to come. Click the video above!
On Friday, March 17, staffers from KaBOOM! and Target gathered with members of the community to build a park for Richmond in one day. KaBOOM! is a nonprofit that provides new playgrounds and park equipment to cities that lack economic resources. The lot on Wendell and 24th Street had been empty for 15 years after the playground equipment was removed due to its hazardous conditions. Click the video above to see how people turned transformed it into a space for kids…
The Bay Area is home to many different cultures and communities, but there is one sub-culture that is often overlooked: paranormal investigators. They examine both private residences and allegedly haunted locations to determine if there is a ghostly presence there. Investigators then attempt to communicate with spirits using mediums or gadgets from their arsenal of detection tools. Click the video above to learn more about how ghost hunting works.
Scenes from Richmond Art Center’s Fall Family Day
Last Tuesday, Richmond’s Public Art Advisory Committee (PAAC) met to discuss Percent for Art in Private Development, an ordinance that would earmark one percent of large-scale private development project funds for the creation and inclusion of public artwork on the site of new Richmond businesses. “We want business owners to think about the one percent fund allocation as an opportunity to add art to an already existing, necessary part of their development project,” said Michele Seville, Arts and Culture Manager…