Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle: Don’t Sweat The Technique

By Gina Acebo Oct 12, 2009

West Oakland’s deFremery Park pulsated with color, sound, and people this last Saturday with the 3rd Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle. Taking place in conjunction with Youth Speak’s “Living is Life Festival” by Marc Bamuthi, 16 of the most talented graffiti artists from around the country brought their artistic game to the canvas, creating larger than life images that spoke to the theme “Grow.” Seeing the sea of people of color from across generation, performing music, spoken word and b-boy battling, cutting and painting stencils of past and present justice fighters, creating makeshift altars in preparation for Dia Del Los Muertos, and assembling large scale bamboo architecture, I couldn’t help be inspired to not just “be green,” but really infuse racial equity to the public conversation and solution building of the green economy. With ARC’s upcoming Green Equity Toolkit slated to hit the streets in early November, I think that the community building efforts like this event combined with the Toolkit’s standards for equity to ensure that the green economy benefits people of color can help us build a movement that folks now and generations ahead can say, “We did this, with our hands, our head, our heart.” Adelante!

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