WHAT TO DO WITH THE
980 FREEWAY?
Weather Alert!
We’re keeping an eye on the weather — there's a forecast of morning rain clearing by midday. Rain or shine, we’ll be there — ready to celebrate Oakland’s creativity, resilience, and community power!
About the Event
The 980 Block Party is more than a fun gathering. It is a community-powered experience where art, history, and collective imagination come together to shape the future of the I-980 freeway corridor. The event takes place at Preservation Park, a historic site built from Victorian homes uprooted by freeway construction — making it a living symbol of both harm and reimagination. Here, we will explore West Oakland’s past, confront today’s challenges, and dream boldly about tomorrow.
We especially welcome West Oakland natives and legacy residents
to share your stories, visions, and dreams.
![INITIATIVE [Recovered]-02.png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/315585_6af9130f25984cf8a997d9054d3b6047~mv2.png/v1/crop/x_1380,y_1665,w_5940,h_5925/fill/w_396,h_395,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/INITIATIVE%20%5BRecovered%5D-02.png)
The 980 Block Party is a landmark community festival that mobilizes local residents through art, storytelling, and participatory design to reimagine the future of the I-980 corridor with an equitable development lens. The event builds on West Oakland’s cultural legacy with a commitment to policy change around comprehensive creative community development.
Past, Present & Possible: Reimagining the 980 Corridor
Guiding Principles of
Harm Repair
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Historical Context: West Oakland pre-urban renewal
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Policy and Agency Conditions: Redlining and eminent domain
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Healing and Imagination: Honor resilience, resistance, and leveraging the culture to envision the future.
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Community Organizing and Power Building: Co-creating governance and policy pathways
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Leveraging the arts to create a full-circle power building experience — memories, experiences, resilience, vision, organizing and action
What To Expect
Large-Scale
Site Mapping
This interactive exercise invites participants to confront history while shaping possibility. Using oversized maps of the I-980 freeway corridor and surrounding neighborhoods, participants will step into the role of community visionaries—building housing, parks, cultural spaces, businesses, and transportation connections.
Physical 3D Modeling
This hands-on activity transforms vision into form. Using a large-scale, three-dimensional model of downtown Oakland, the I-980 freeway corridor, and West Oakland, participants will reimagine the landscape with movable blocks representing housing, green space, and cultural anchors. By reshaping the model, participants can see how new land uses might reconnect neighborhoods once divided by the freeway.
Digital Modeling
Through digital tools like Minecraft, participants collaborate across generations to reimagine the corridor. Youth, elders, and residents work together to model their visions in real time, creating digital landscapes that showcase new opportunities for housing, public spaces, and culture. The exercise bridges past and future allowing participants to unlock bold possibilities for an equitable and connected Oakland.
Each interactive exercise at the 980 Block Party gives you the chance to share your voice and shape the future. Led by artists, community leaders, and partners, these activities highlight the harm caused by the freeway while inviting us to imagine and co-create an inclusive, equitable future for West Oakland.
Oral History Circles & Storytelling
In intimate circles, legacy residents of West Oakland share their lived experiences of community before, during, and after the construction of I-980. Participants are invited to listen, reflect, and add their own voices, creating a shared archive of memory and vision. These conversations honor the thriving social fabric that once existed and acknowledge the harms of displacement and cultural erasure. The storytelling circles create a living record of resilience and wisdom, reminding us that the future must be built with the voices of those most impacted at its center.
I remember, without it being spoken, there was a certain amount of pride of ownership in the community. Even if you were renting-- you had pride of where you lived.
Greg Bridges
SHARE YOUR STORY
Facilitated Discussions
Steamroller Art Block Printing
This large-scale printmaking activity transforms historical harm into powerful works of art. Participants will experience the production of art prints pressed on architectural drawings and maps of the original freeway construction, layering past and present in a single act of expression. The process becomes a metaphor for harm and repair—compressing stories, struggles, and dreams into bold public artworks that carry the weight of history and the hope of transformation.
Partner organizations and content experts will facilitate
discussions on housing, economic development, health, cultural arts, transportation, parks, youth, seniors, and policy, legislation and other elements of a new equitable future for the 980 cooridor..
Video
Screenings
A curated series of short films and documentaries invites participants to engage with stories of displacement, urban renewal, and community resilience in West Oakland and beyond. Featured works such as Highway of Dreams, Conquered, and genealogical histories bring the audience face to face with the consequences of freeway construction while also showcasing the creativity and power of those who resisted and rebuilt.
Institutional Harm Illustrations
Large-scale illustrations and infographics vividly depict the systemic harms that have shaped West Oakland, from environmental racism and incarceration to economic exclusion and health disparities. Paired with interactive tabletop exercises, participants explore these issues together, identify ongoing impacts, and propose strategies for repair. The activity turns data into dialogue and transforms statistics into calls for collective action, reminding participants that harm repair is both a moral and practical necessity in building a just future.
Resident Profiles & Quotes
Life-sized portraits and quotes from legacy residents line the site, giving voice to those whose lives have been shaped by the freeway and its aftermath. Participants encounter personal stories of harm, resilience, and vision as they walk through the event, grounding the broader conversations in lived experience. This installation ensures that residents remain visible and central—not just as storytellers, but as leaders shaping the narrative of what comes next.
Data Station: Quantification of Actual Harm
At this interactive station, participants explore data collected by graduate students from the Goldman School of Public Policy quantifying harms caused by freeway construction, redlining, and disinvestment. Using visuals and hands-on tools, visitors see how housing, health, education, and economic impacts compound over generations, shortening life expectancy and limiting opportunity. By connecting numbers to real stories, the station empowers participants to understand harm in measurable terms and to imagine how future investments could repair and restore value to the community.
Select installations and interactive features at this event were designed by faculty and students at the California College of the Arts Architecture Division in partnership with EVOAK!. Associate Professor and Director of Urban Works Agency Janette Kim. Students: Salim Ahmed, Khushboo Anuvadia, Noor Alhashimi, Julianna Barreto, Mariam Behbehani, Vicky Cheung, Gaoyang Marshall Dong, Finn Ghinn, Amanda Gomez, Lesly Karina Gonzalez-Benitez, Yicheng Jiang, Jin Mook Kang, Yicheng Leo Li, Dawn Lorence, Ritika Menon Menon, Zi ching Ooi, Eitan Reuven, Amira Seale, Curran Thompson, Arya Manish Tipre, Samuel Avila Vallejo. Special thanks to Zi ching Ooi for her role in coordinating this installation.
Project Host
Advancing Comprehensive Creative Community Development Initiatives Through the Arts
Our goals include:
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Promoting community-centered advocacy in support of sustainable and equitable growth.
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Maintaining accessible gathering spaces that reflect the needs and aspirations of the local community.
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Strengthening community identity by fostering a sense of belonging through cultural activation.
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Building innovative and scalable frameworks to help communities facing cultural erosion.
Project Sponsors
The 980 Block Party and EVOAK!’s broader harm repair initiatives are made possible through a strategic partnership with The Kresge Foundation, whose support advances community-driven approaches to address or approaches to the lasting harms of transportation infrastructure in the East Bay. This partnership helps us everage the power of the arts, culture, and creative civic engagement to reimagine spaces marked by division into places of connection, opportunity, and healing.
Thanks to AARP for their generous support of the 980 Block Party through the Community Challenge Grant Program. The Community Challenge Grant Program helps make communities more livable for people of all ages with tangible improvements that jump-start long-term change by funding innovative, quick-action projects that inspire change in areas such as public places; housing; transportation; digital connectivity; community resilience; and more.
Media Sponsors
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