LIVING.
WORD.
HISTORY.
POSSIBILITIES.
Seventeen years strong, LIFE is LIVING is a FREE celebration of Oakland life. Since 2008, Life is Living has been held on the second Saturday of October to mark the ways art can mobilize for environmental justice to create a vibrant community.
Currently produced by People’s Kitchen Collective, LiL was founded by Oakland luminaries like Chinaka Hodge, Estria Miyashiro, Joan Osato, Candice Wicks Davis, Jenn Johns, Jeff Chang, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Jason Mateo, Hodari Davis, Keba Konte, Brett Cook, Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Keith K Dub Williams, and more. And it is with immense gratitude to Youth Speaks and Edutainment for Equity for producing and caretaking LiL into a foundational cultural phenomenon, that PKC now holds the honor of continuing the legacy.
LiL has brought together over 7,000 people to West Oakland’s historic Lil Bobby Hutton Park in past years. The festival has included a traveling environmental caucus & concert, an invitational Graffiti Battle, live-action sports, sustainable materials construction projects, live poetry events, free breakfast program, a science and technology fair, BPP inspired survival conference, multiple stages, outreach and a variety of other activities. As Candice and Hodari have shared, “Our arts practices must echo and sustain the lives of the communities we engage.”
Under the direction of former National Program Director Hodari Davis, Life Is Living has been an important experiment. It has tested new ideas about engaging youth, presenting public art, fostering literacy and storytelling, developing arts audiences, establishing non-traditional partnerships, transforming the environmental justice movement, and catalyzing community-building.
Authored by Jeff Chang, Living Theory of Change explains the artistic process, philosophical frameworks & organizing principles that have guided Life Is Living’s approach to eco-empowerment through the Arts. With a historical look at the events, the partnerships and audiences that stemmed from this process, the document will articulate a new theory of change; one grounded in celebrating Life through urban performance, intergenerational health, and environmental action.
The living document will also establish explicitly the value that grows in the intersection between cultural and environmental philanthropy.
People's Kitchen Collective (PKC) works at the intersection of art and activism as a food-centered political education project. Our creative practices reflect diverse histories and backgrounds, from which we create immersive experiences that honor the shared struggles of our people. PKC believes in radical hospitality as a strategy to address the urgent social issues of our time.
PKC first collaborated with LiL in 2011 when we brought a version of the Free Breakfast Program legacy to the park to honor the revolutionary traditions of the Black Panther Party Survival Programs. For over a decade PKC has shown up at the intersection of art, food, and social justice as one of the principle co-organizers of LiL to feed the community, body and soul. We look forward to continuing the tradition of embodying all the creative, expressive, and liberatory ways we show up for each other and The Town.