Special Guest Gallery Chat: Mildred Howard and Adrian Burrell

Special Guest Gallery Chat: Mildred Howard and Adrian Burrell | MoAD Nexus Black Art Week

In celebration of MoAD Nexus Black Art Week, we invite you to a Special Guest Gallery Chat with artists Mildred Howard and Adrian Burrell (featured in former OMCA Special Exhibition Black Spaces: Reclaim & Remain). Moderated by OMCA’s Senior Director of Marketing, Advancement, Engagement, Autumn King, this engaging conversation brings together the two artists to share their creative practices and perspectives. Presented in partnership with MoAD Nexus Black Art Week, the conversation offers an opportunity to connect with the artists and explore their work in conversation with the Museum community.

Complementing the evening, Friday Nights at OMCA offers music and hands-on activities for guests of all ages. On the Garden Stage, Oakland singer-songwriter Shanté brings her soulful sound to the Museum with a powerful live performance blending smooth R&B, heartfelt storytelling, and uplifting messages. Over in the Amphitheater, DJ Shell Heart keeps the music going with a high-energy mix of Hip-Hop, R&B, Afrobeats, and classic Bay Area rap and party anthems.

Families can also gather in the Garden for Drag Storytime with Per Sia, San Francisco’s Drag Laureate, featuring a reading of Hazel’s Best Day: A Story of Community, Accessibility, and Pride in Being Yourself. Guests of all ages are invited to make their own mini home inspired by Mildred Howard’s house sculptures, using colorful materials to create a tiny home that tells their story.

The Museum welcomes visitors to an evening of conversation, music, creativity, and connection—rooted in Black art, community, and collective imagination.

Panelist Bios

Mildred Howard began making art influenced by textiles and African Diasporic dance as early as the 1970s. Howard’s studio became a space for experimentation, where her work has referenced both personal history and collective, generational experiences—from World War I to her family’s roots in the Great Migration. Howard’s monumental public artworks—found across the Bay Area—have highlighted often overlooked histories, from the Black ship workers of Hunters Point to the musicians who defined San Francisco jazz. OMCA’s exhibition Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory brings together Howard’s renowned collages, found-object sculptures, and immersive installations that explore memory, identity, and the African American experience.

Adrian Burrell is a multimedia artist whose practice includes photography, film, installation, and experimental media. His work examines the intersections of race, class, and intergenerational dynamics, inviting moments where collective storytelling creates space for remembrance. Burrell’s work has been the subject of the recent solo exhibitions Venus Blues at the Minnesota Street Project Foundation (2023), and Sugarcane and Lightning pt 3 at the San José ICA, CA (2022), each investigating his own family history — archival, speculative, and fictional — as a means of understanding Black life, history, resistance, and liberation in America. A third-generation Oakland artist and US Marine Corps veteran, Burrell received his BFA in Film from the San Francisco Art Institute, CA and MFA from Stanford University’s Department of Art & Art History, where he was also a visiting artist with Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in Arts (2022).

L. Autumn King serves as Senior Director of Marketing, Communications, and Visitor Experience for Oakland Museum of California. With over 25 years of experience working in communications in varied capacities, including media relations, public relations, public information, marketing, and public engagement, her professional career has been primarily in nonprofit management and local government. A transplant, Autumn loves Oakland where she works, volunteers, organizes, and lives. Host of online show Trail Chats, she proudly shines a light on the natural beauty of the Town and the leaders who help it thrive. She can regularly be found trekking in the Oakland hills or at OMCA’s pond talking with the turtles.

Accessibility

Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is committed to providing programs that are accessible, welcoming, and inclusive of our community. Wheelchairs, sensory inclusive devices, and additional amenities are available for checkout on a first come, first served basis at the Ticketing Desk. To request other accommodations, like American Sign Language (ASL), Cantonese, Spanish or another language interpreter, please email visitor@museumca.org at least three weeks before the event. Learn more about our accessibility options.