Oakland Museum of California (OMCA)

Collections and facilities management: the Oakland Museum of California (omca) has lease and grant agreements in place with the city of Oakland to conserve, steward, research, and provide scholarly and interpretive expertise in support of the city of Oakland's Museum collections, which make up the totality of the Museum's collection, and to manage and maintain the city's historic brutalist building and gardens over seven acres at 1000 oak street and its collections warehouse in Oakland, California (collectively, the museum).the Museum's collections are the most complete resource on California's natural, artistic, and social history anywhere in the state and are held in public trust by the city of Oakland for the public good as one of the city's most valuable assets. Omca maintains the Museum's accreditation with the american alliance of museums (aam) on behalf of the city of Oakland. Other activities that omca performs related to the city of Oakland's collections include:- oversee acquisition, cataloging, storage, research, and care for the city of Oakland's Museum collections- make the city of Oakland's Museum collections available through exhibition, loans to other institutions, and online presentation- undertake preservation, security, and conservation effects for the city of Oakland's Museum collectionsthe scope of the Museum's collection places particular emphasis on the diversity of environments, peoples and cultures of California. For the art collection, the Museum seeks works that reflect the diversity of identities in California and that speak to the experience of under-represented people such as women, persons of color, people with disabilities, and members of the lgbtq+ community. In collecting history artifacts, omca places a high priority on acquisitions that fill gaps in our ability to tell the stories of diverse people and cultures of California, their identities and the dynamics of power between and among them, and that ensure the ability of traditionally underrepresented groups to tell their own stories.the Museum has been collecting and presenting art since 1922 when its predecessor organization, the Oakland art gallery was housed in the kaiser convention center. The Museum holds 166,000 works of California art from the 1840s to the present including many large-scale outdoor sculptures by artists ruth asawa, viola frey, fletcher benton, tony labat, stephen de staebler, mark di suvero, peter voulkos, george rickey and linda fleming. The Museum's collection in total encompasses nearly 2 million objects pertaining to California, including 70,000 works by California artists from the late 18th century to the present, 1,055,000 artifacts and photographs documenting the state's history and people from pre-history to today, and 112,000 natural specimens, images, and sound recordings of California species and environments.omca recently revised its collections acquisition practices for artifacts related to social justice, using a lens of equity and reparation. Omca's collecting plan highlights California's diversity of peoples and cultures. The Museum received 18 distinct gifts consisting of 24,662 objects during fy22. Highlights of omca's acquisitions for the Museum this year included the dugan aguilar collection and archive, the calli americas poster collection, justice for our lives posters, and visage vi by hung liu.omca also hosts an online dorothea lange digital archive httpsdorothealangemuseumcaorg Omca digitized a huge trove of the nearly 50,000 photographs from activist photographer dorothea lange and makes them available at no charge on our website. These photos are eerily timely, as they portray essential workers--many of whom were immigrants--and the broken promises of american entrepreneurship that echo today.omca maintains the building and seven acres of grounds and gardens on behalf of the city of Oakland. The Museum's terraced roof gardens and central courtyard, designed by noted landscape architect dan kiley, serve as a village green for Oakland residents and visitors from the bay area and beyond. Through predominantly privately financed funds, omca debuted its renovations to the Museum's campus in fy22, including a new, direct entrance from Oakland's lake merritt, upgrades and improved access to the Museum's caf, and refreshed gardens complete with new native plantings and a permanent stage for increased outdoor programming. This renovation has helped omca expand its role as a public gathering place, offering even greater amenities to serve as Oakland's town square. These improvements help us better share our space with Oakland: providing opportunities for more dynamic programs and community events, creating improved ease of access to the gardens, caf, and galleries through additional ada-accessible ramps and campus wayfinding. A prominent component of the campus and garden renovation has been redesigning omca's outdoor sculpture placement to complement the renovated gardens. The Museum's curators brought a fresh eye to the public sculptures on view throughout the gardens, featuring work by 24 internationally renowned California artists. The resulting design creates a strong sense of place and Museum identity and enhances the original kevin roche architectural design.

Educational and community programs:omca audiences are families, adults, students, and lifelong learners. While the vision for engagement embraces all Museum audiences and participants, omca's target audiences are adults and families who live in the most immediate neighborhoods adjacent to the Museum. These individuals are residents of the chinatown, fruitvale, san antonio, uptown and west Oakland neighborhoods, which are among Oakland's most culturally and economically diverse regions, characterized by a significant proportion of multi-racial and multi-generational families. The median household income of the Museum's immediate neighborhoods is $31,097.approximately 90% of the Museum's visitors are residents of the san francisco bay area. Omca is part of a growing ecosystem supporting the arts in Oakland, actively engaging contemporary art to accomplish its mission. Omca creates transformative experiences that have real meaning in the lives of our visitors. The Museum's ability to communicate the personal relevance of these experiences attracts audiences that reflect the changing demographics of California and the extraordinarily diverse community of Oakland and the bay area. During the 2021-2022 school year, omca continued offering virtual education programs at no cost to teachers or schools, supporting students and teachers as they faced this challenging year. Programs both leveraged the collection and presented content teaching coping mechanisms for resiliency. The Museum offered four different virtual programs and two virtual performances, both live and pre-recorded. Education programs and performances expanded on themes such as the undertold stories of the California gold rush, black history, and art as activism. Virtual k-12 programs at omca served 28,133 students across northern California, with 57% coming from schools with programs specifically designed for low-income students.omca's community engagement approaches are designed to be accessible to all communities and to foster a sense of belonging for all. In order to develop programming platforms that provide authentic cultural experiences, omca fosters strong partnership with community-based organizations. Omca introduced and held 33 lunchtime sessions programs during fy22. This afternoon program on select thursdays and saturdays was omca's way to reconnect with artists and visitors in a safe outdoor setting after a long hiatus from large gatherings. The series took place in omca's garden and used the newly-added stage to feature local musicians and performers. The programs garnered 4,653 attendees. "friday nights at omca with off the grid," one of the Museum's flagship community engagement offerings, returned to campus in june 2022. It comprises a free weekly year-round event series featuring a rotating mix of dance lessons, gallery talks, hands-on demonstrations by local artists, family-friendly workshops and performances. "friday nights at omca with off the grid" events provide a uniquely authentic Oakland experience through a multi-layered program platform.omca also returned to in-person cultural festivals in fy22. In february 2022, omca's 21st annual lunar new year celebration welcomed in the year of the tiger and included both virtual and in-person offerings celebrating traditions through storytelling, performances, activities, cooking demonstrations, and more. Omca also held space for its asian american and pacific islander communities to come together and uplift each other with both in-person and virtual healing circles, facilitated by partner organization, lotus awakens. Approximately 2,000 people attended the lunar new year celebration. Fy22's dia de los muertos celebration included a virtual component and an ofrenda on omca's campus.omca redesigned its website and prepared for its launch in september 2022. The omca website redesign team communicated with many cross-functional internal stakeholders throughout the process to provide transparency, allow multiple voices to contribute to the process, and ensure the organization's needs are being met. The process included 10 departments and 34 stakeholders to outline key features and understand the various stakeholders' website needs.our most popular social channel is instagram where on average omca receives 13 comments per post. This is also the platform where the content is most actively shared, thus expanding the Museum's reach. Over the past year, omca heard a clear need from the community to support artists during the pandemic. Omca leveraged its twitter and instagram platforms to promote local Oakland artists and musicians, and emphasized artwork that highlights social justice issues. Community artists submit their work to "#museumofthepeople" to share with one another on the omca pages. The result has been a series of curated selections supported with pride and mutual encouragement from our community every week. #museumofthepeople has a gallery of over 500 submissions. This audience has also responded well to "reels" (short clips of entertaining or educational videos), including a reel featuring local celebrity and standup comedian (and omca fan) w. kamau bell to alert visitors to the reopening.

Core galleries and special exhibitions:on june 11, 2021, omca reopened to the public after fifteen months of closure, providing a safe re-opening and welcome to public audiences. We instituted online timed ticketing and new signage throughout campus to encourage safe distancing. In total, the Museum served 82,726 visitors this year.omca is rebuilding its audience. After over a year of closure, the Museum was eager to welcome visitors back to a new, post-pandemic reality. Staff spent the year evaluating visitor experiences and focusing on ways to increase social cohesion in a rapidly changing environment. We've been honored by the positive response we've received from so many of our visitors. of those who've visited in the past year, the Museum has seen an increase in local visitors, with 91% coming from the san francisco bay area and 67% from alameda county. 44% of omca visitors are bipoc and 56% are white.the Museum's collections of nearly 2 million objects are devoted to the art, history, and natural environment of California and are displayed to reflect the state's cultural, artistic and biological diversity. The Museum is continually rotating objects in its three core collections galleries and typically hosts two to three temporary exhibitions per year. The Museum has galleries of California history, art, and natural sciences to display the core collection, as well as two spaces for temporary exhibitions. Interdisciplinary interpretation is provided by object and thematic labels, audiovisual presentations, interactive computer and video terminals, and self-guiding brochures, and facilitated experiences.. The gallery of California natural sciences features seven places throughout California that depict the state's diversity of climate, geology, habitats, ecosystems, and wildlife, while exploring current research, contemporary issues of land use, environmental conflict, and conservation projects. In may 2022, omca completed the fabrication and installation of the new early learning playspace in the gallery of natural sciences. Omca opened the omca kids: nature playspace, specifically welcoming back families with children ages 2 to 5 years. The Museum partnered with outside experts and leaders in early childhood and family learning and surveyed local families. As a result, omca's playspace includes activities that support different ages, abilities, and types of learning.the gallery of California art exhibits works of all disciplines, including painting, sculpture, photography, craft, conceptual work, and new media, as well as documentary materials such as artists' tools, sketchbooks, scrapbooks, and other ephemera. Organized thematically, the gallery highlights California land, California people, and California creativity such that visitors see works in different media and from different periods side by side, inspiring new ways of looking at California's visual expression. In october 2021, omca created a new art gallery presentation in memory of acclaimed oakland-based artist hung liu, who passed away suddenly in august 2021. The new gallery features four of her paintings, and offers a quiet setting for visitors to enjoy and appreciate her work, as well as space for remembrance and reflection. The gallery of California history presents the theme "becoming California" to emphasize the profound civic engagement of those who live here, beginning with indigenous peoples. Visitors trace the ways californians have forged relationships with each other, the environment, and the world through artifacts and stories. On august 6, 2021 omca opened mothership: voyage into afrofuturism, a timely and relevant exhibition exploring afrofuturism as a creative genre and movement that centers black experiences and imagines a more vibrant future for the black community. In total, 46,373 visitors attended the exhibition. In partnership with Oakland unified school district teachers, the marinovators, and the performing stars of marin, omca organized a special viewing and youth takeover of mothership for 300 local black youth in february 2022. After witnessing its success, omca decided to make youth admission free for the remainder of the show. 429 youth received free access to mothership. Mothership closed on february 27, 2022.on january 29, 2022, the exhibition edith heath: a life in clay opened, telling the story of the acclaimed bay area ceramicist and founder of heath ceramics. The exhibition is on view until october 2022 and has received rave reviews from visitors and publications. Omca developed hella feminist: an exhibition, preparing to install and open on july 29, 2022. The new exhibition explores the intersection of gender identity and race, interrogates the societal structures that lead to the oppression of women, and provides a space for reflection, healing, and inspiration.omca measures its success in terms of number of visitors and members; contributions to the Museum field and scholarship in California art, history, and natural sciences; critical and media response to exhibitions; and visitor comments and feedback. Omca undertakes extensive visitor evaluation to measure the impact of its programming on both individual audience members and on the community at large.