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Exhibitions & Features

Exhibition Great Hall Calli: The Art of Xicanx Peoples

On view now—Experience intergenerational, feminist, queer, and Xicanx-Indigenous artworks offering ancestral forms of liberation, healing, and being at Calli: The Art of Xicanx Peoples, only at OMCA.

Calli layers multiple artistic perspectives, featuring posters from late queer Chicana activist and professor Margaret “Margie” Terrazas Santos’ collection in conversation with contemporary works by Xicanx artists who expand the horizons of possibility, inspiring reflection and fostering dialogue about a world in which we can all belong.

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Exhibition Great Hall Born of the Bear Dance: Dugan Aguilar’s Photographs of Native California

Experience the diverse voices of California’s Indigenous peoples as they shape the present and future through the lens of celebrated Indigenous photographer Dugan Aguilar.

OMCA’s latest exhibition, Born of the Bear Dance: Dugan Aguilar’s Photographs of Native California offers guests a first look at a significant collection that highlights Indigenous endurance and explores the vivid tapestry of contemporary Indigenous California life.

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Feature Natural Sciences Gallery You Are Here: California Stories on the Map

We all use maps in our everyday lives—to navigate public transportation, find places to eat, and visualize big data like weather patterns or political opinions. But have you ever considered the deeper stories maps tell us?

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Feature History Gallery Black Power

Uncover the history of the Black Power movements in California with a compelling addition to the Gallery of California History. In response to the widely-popular 2016 exhibition All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50, this installation illustrates the creative ways Black anti-racist activists in California supported their communities and challenged the U.S. government.

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Feature Natural Sciences Gallery OMCA Kids: Nature Playspace

Little learners can unleash their curiosity and imagination in the newly created OMCA Kids: Nature Playspace. Located inside the Gallery of California Natural Sciences, the playspace is focused on the unique needs of children ages 2 to 5, along with their families and caregivers

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Feature Art Gallery An Installation by Chelsea Ryoko Wong, OMCA Artist-in-Residence

Fashion, family histories, and personal identity intersect in a new installation at OMCA by Bay Area artist Chelsea Ryoko Wong. Wong’s energetic and colorful paintings, drawn from both real-life events and her imagination, depict  busy, rhythmic scenes of people going about their daily lives. For this project, Wong’s paintings take inspiration from dresses owned by seven 20th century Chinese American women, whose clothing and legacies live on in OMCA’s collection. The installation features paintings along with a selection of the fashions that inspired them. Visitors to the installation are invited into the world of the dresses and the women who wore them to ponder history, the value of what we wear to future generations, and the role of clothing as an expression of identity. Dresses that belonged to Rose Setzo, Sophia Chang Wong, Grace Dea, Lei Kim Lim, Chop Chin Chum, and Sun Fung Lee Wong caught Wong’s eye and are re-envisioned in the abstract narratives of her vibrant work. 

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Galleries & Garden

Past

Exhibition Great Hall Por el Pueblo:
The Legacy & Influence of Malaquías Montoya

Explore the living impact of Chicano artist, Malaquías Montoya, whose legacy as a public-serving artist, activist, and community elder serves as inspiration for younger generations within the Chicano community and beyond. Montoya’s posters, graphic prints, and murals highlighting political and social justice issues have helped define the Chicano identity for nearly five decades.

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Exhibition Great Hall Into the Brightness: Artists from Creativity Explored, Creative Growth & NIAD

In collaboration with three profound Bay Area institutions, Into the Brightness: Artists from Creativity Explored, Creative Growth, & NIAD celebrates myriad works from contemporary artists with developmental disabilities.

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Exhibition Great Hall Angela Davis–Seize the Time

Angela Davis — Seize the Time, examines the image, influence, and activism of the Oakland-based icon. With a focus on her arrest, incarceration, trial, and the national and international campaigns to free her, Seize the Time will highlight Davis’s legacy as well as her ongoing role as an important contemporary figure for artists and activists.

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Exhibition Great Hall Hella Feminist

Feminism. It’s a loaded word; as empowering to some as it is challenging for others. OMCA takes on this complex and timely topic with Hella Feminist, celebrating the lesser-known stories of feminism here in Oakland and the Bay Area.

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Exhibition Art Gallery Edith Heath: A Life in Clay

Trailblazer. Rebel. Revolutionary. Discover the story of Edith Heath, founder and designer of Heath Ceramics. Heath transformed the ceramics industry, creating dinnerware from California clay for “Sunday best” and everyday use.

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Exhibition Great Hall Mothership: Voyage Into Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a lot of things. It’s the past, present, and future reimagined through a Black cultural lens. Visionary, spiritual, and generative, it is art, music, literature, and cinema that expresses a just future where Black people and Black ideas thrive. It is fantasy and science fiction that envisions the African Diaspora and Black culture as central in a technically advanced and culturally rich civilization. It is also the ordinary—now— in this very moment and the everyday pleasures that may often be seen as mundane. Afrofuturism is a strategy for Black community building. 

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