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Through community gardening, neighbors transform unused, blighted spaces into lush jewels of community pride as they work with one another to grow flowers and vegetables. Growing Up In The City is a traveling exhibition of 27 rich color photographs, poignant captions and an introductory essay conveys the rewards of gardening as part of one's community. Borrow it to complement your existing school garden program, to inspire parents, students, and teachers interested in starting a garden at your school, to celebrate a community garden in your neighborhood, to bring attention to your community's farmer's market, or to liven up public spaces such as lobbies, empty storefronts, or community centers.

Growing Up In The City features works by students in Oakland, California's Media Academy at Fremont High School: Justin Killian, Rosa Manriquez, Mimi Nguyen, Deborah Montalvo, and Brenda Orozco. They worked with staff from the Oakland Museum of California to explore local community gardens and develop their photography skills. This project was created in 1995 in order to provide a complementary exhibit that "localized" the enormously successful photo exhibition From the Good Earth, and to familiarize local young people with gardening as a way of building community. While on display at the Oakland Museum, the photographs received critical acclaim from professional photographers and general public; we then decided to make these works available to the public as a traveling exhibition.

The exhibition comes "ready-to-go" in its own traveling cases with 27 color photographs (sizes range from 12 in. x 19 in. to 20 in. x 26 1/4 in.), titles, poignant captions, and an introductory essay; all are ready to be hung. Growing Up in the City covers approximately 40 linear feet of wall space total; it is well suited for hallways, lobbies, and multi-purpose rooms.

Financial support to create and maintain the exhibition has been provided by the Oakland Museum of California Foundation and the Clorox Company Foundation.

The cost for borrowing this exhibition is $55 for Oakland groups and $70 for non-Oakland groups. To request a registration form and to learn more about our other educational programs, please contact the Oakland Museum of California, Education Department at 510-238-3818, TTY 510-451-3322.