Art and Impact in the East Bay
Moderated by Otis R. Taylor Jr., KQED
Date & Time:
Saturday, April 19, 2025
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Location:
San Francisco Art Fair Theater
What is the role of art in shaping the social and cultural landscape? “Art and Impact in the East Bay” will explore how artist collectives, galleries and public spaces foster collaboration, inclusivity and community engagement, particularly in Oakland. From curated galleries to vibrant street art, Oakland’s art scene reflects its rich cultural diversity and deep community connections. Panelists for the dynamic conversation include Brock Brake, owner and curator of pt.2 Gallery in downtown Oakland; Favianna Rodriguez, a visual artist and activist; Makeda Best, deputy director of curatorial affairs at the Oakland Museum of California; and Nadia Ghani, Gallery Director at Creative Growth Art Center. The discussion will highlight how artists and institutions are driving social change, preserving local history and redefining artistic expression in the East Bay. It will be moderated by Otis R. Taylor Jr., KQED’s managing editor of news and enterprise.
Otis R. Taylor Jr.
Otis R. Taylor Jr. is KQED’s managing editor of news and enterprise. He works with reporters and senior editors to bring cultural competency and energy to KQED’s coverage of the Bay Area’s diverse communities. Previously, he was a columnist at The San Francisco Chronicle and an investigative reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, covering housing, policing, immigration, race and inequality. Before moving to the Bay Area, he was an arts and culture reporter for more than a decade. In 2020, he was named journalist of the year by the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Makeda Best
Since 2023, Makeda Best has served as the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Oakland Museum of California, where she oversees the Curatorial, Collections, and Production departments. As a former photography curator at the Harvard Art Museums, her exhibitions included “Time is Now: Photography and Social Change in James Baldwin’s America,” “Crossing Lines, Constructing Home: Displacement and Belonging in Contemporary Art,” and “Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography Since 1970,” which was awarded Aperture/Paris Photo’s 2022 Photography Catalogue of the Year. Her museum-wide project “ReFrame” sought to re-imagine the installation and presentation of the permanent collections of the Harvard Art Museums. In addition to numerous catalogue essays and journal articles, Best is the author of Elevate the Masses: Alexander Gardner, Photography, and Democracy in 19th-Century America. She earned her MFA from CalArts, and PhD from Harvard University. Best is a co-founder and current board member of Museums Moving Forward, an independent, limited-life organization devoted to creating a more just museum sector by 2030.
Nadia Ghani
Nadia Ghani is the Gallery Director at Creative Growth Art Center. She received her BFA in Art History and French and Francophone studies from Mills College. Prior to Creative Growth she had a long career in museums having worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and then the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. She has worked with Creative Growth since 2022. Creative Growth is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California that advances the inclusion of artists with developmental disabilities in contemporary art and strengthens community by providing a supportive studio environment and gallery representation. In her role as Gallery Director she is responsible for representing the 130 artists currently working in the Oakland Studio in addition to some of the more well known artists who have since passed such as Judith Scott and Dwight Mackintosh. The gallery at Creative Growth has 6 exhibitions a year, participates in 6 domestic and international art fairs per year, facilitates partnerships and collaborations, and has an active outgoing loan program. In 2024 Creative Growth celebrated its 50th anniversary and a landmark acquisition by SFMOMA with a subsequent exhibition, The House that Art Built.
Favianna Rodriguez
Favianna Rodriguez is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural strategist, and entrepreneur based in Oakland, California. Her art and praxis address migration, reproductive justice, climate change, racial equity, and sexual freedom. Her work centers joy and healing, while challenging entrenched myths and dominant cultural practices. Favianna’s creative partnerships include institutions like Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, Ben & Jerry’s, Spotify, Old Navy, and Playboy Magazine. Through her poignant speeches, she has inspired audiences around the world including at the United Nations Climate Summit, Sundance Film Festival, Smithsonian, and Google. A strategy advisor to artists of all genres, Favianna is regarded as one of the leading thinkers and personalities uniting art, culture and social impact. Through her thought leadership as Founder and former President of The Center for Cultural Power, an organization igniting change at the intersection of art and social justice, she has been instrumental in building a cultural strategy ecosystem that supports BIPOC artists in the U.S. She helped launch the Constellations Culture Change Fund, a philanthropic initiative that moved $8 million to artists activists and grassroots art organizations in the United States. She is a recipient of the Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellowship, the Atlantic Fellowship for Racial Equity, and the Soros Equality Fellowship.