Oakland Museum of California (OMCA)

Core galleries and special exhibitions:the Museum has galleries of California history, art, and natural sciences to display the core collection, as well as two spaces for temporary exhibitions. The Museum is continually rotating objects in its three core collections galleries and typically hosts two to three temporary exhibitions per year. Interdisciplinary interpretation is provided by object and thematic labels, audiovisual presentations, interactive computer and video terminals, 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. 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. 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 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. A key figure in 20th century american design, heath is one of the most influential mid-century modernists who created work inspired by and made in California. The exhibition closed on october 30, 2022. Omca presented hella feminist: an exhibition from july 29, 2022 to january 8, 2023. Rooted in the idea that discrimination against all elements of identity is interlinked and that no element can be addressed in isolation, hella feminist celebrated the lesser-known stories of feminism in Oakland and the bay area. Angela davis seize the time was on view from october 7, 2022 to june 18, 2023. The exhibition focused on davis and her image. Organized in partnership with the zimmerli art Museum at rutgers university, the angela davis archive in Oakland was both the heart of the exhibition and a source for documentation. Visitors were given the opportunity to investigate their own memories of davis as well as the idea of preserving history, activating radical black history, and re-imagining the construction of davis' image as an icon of american black radical resistance. Over the course of the year, omca developed the exhibition into the brightness: artists from creativity explored, creative growth, & niad. This major exhibition opened on may 13, 2023 and will be on view until january 26, 2024. Omca worked with select professional artists affiliated with these three san francisco bay area art studios that serve and support artists with developmental disabilities. The exhibition features myriad works of these world-renowned contemporary artists producing work of incredible power, exuberance, humor, complexity, and joy across multiple mediums and styles.in total, the Museum served 142,010 visitors this year, and a membership of nearly 9,000 households. The Museum received the 2022 national medal from the institute of Museum and library services, the nation's highest honor for museums and libraries making significant and exceptional contributions to their communities. Omca measures its success in terms of number of visitors and members; contributions to the Museum field; 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. of those who've visited in the past year, the Museum has seen an increase in local visitors. When surveyed, visitors respond positively both to the Museum's impact on their personal experience as well as their sense of social cohesion while visiting.

Educational and community programs:omca audiences are families, adults, students, and lifelong learners. Approximately 90% of the Museum's visitors are residents of the san francisco bay area, with 38% identifying as people of color. Omca is part of a growing ecosystem supporting the arts in Oakland. 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. Omca's educational programs for the 2022-23 school year were developed in response to several years of learning disruption and other losses related to the pandemic. In the fall of 2022, omca brought back onsite school programs and cultural performances. Thousands of students, teachers, and families returned to the Museum, and the learning initiatives team pursued an inquiry-based approach to encourage active participation in learning. Additionally, omca continued to offer free virtual education programs as students make up for lost emotional and academic learning as a result of the pandemic years.school programs this year centered on anti-racism, cultural competency, and social-emotional learning. Offerings included eight onsite programs, including self-guided opportunities, performances (both onsite and virtual), and virtual field trips. Free virtual programs served 7,877 students, teachers, and additional family members. In new inquiry-based gallery programs, facilitators used questions and guided grounding exercises, as well as providing time for student-led exploration and discussions to help students synthesize what they learned in the gallery. The Museum welcomed 14,623 on-site visitors for a total of 22,500 school program attendees. of these, 28% came from Oakland schools and 45% came from schools with programs specifically designed for low-income families. 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. "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 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.over the course of the year, 62,790 visitors attended this weekly program. In october 2022, omca's annual dia de los muertos celebration returned to omca's campus, welcoming 2,132 visitors. In february 2023, 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 a partner organization, lotus awakens. 3,173 people attended the lunar new year celebration. In the 2022-23 fiscal year, the Museum received its highest estimated marketing attention to date. The marketing and communications team implemented robust curated social media, email, and sms (text campaign) strategies this year in order to build a sense of belonging and engage with the omca community in their own homes. With 291 pieces of coverage, omca estimates this coverage reached a total of 9.2 million people during this period across all social media platforms. The Museum received local, national, and international coverage, with highlights covering special exhibitions, public programs, cultural events, omca's garden, and coverage of the imls national award and the white elephant sale. As a result of this press coverage, omca saw a 73% increase in email subscribers from the previous year. Omca redesigned its "museumca.org" website this year. The Museum has received positive feedback from visitors who have noted that they find the website, and therefore the Museum, attractive and welcoming. A visitor stated they found the website "super vibrant and energetic, which is something that i love. The Museum does not seem dreary or boring. I also like how it says "we're glad you're here". Another visitor noted "the Museum seems very modern...culturally immersed... kind of hip... because the website is very modern and designed very artistically. "the new website allows staff members to showcase more exhibition content online than ever before, including videos which were previously limited to just being viewable inside the galleries. Overall, the site allows omca to better fulfill our mission by further inspiring understanding and empathy with stories and experiences of California's art, history, and natural environment digitally. Successes of this approach include attracting over 1 million unique website sessions and 27% overall growth in website visitors.

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). 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.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. The Museum's collections of nearly 2 million objects are devoted to the art, history, and natural environment 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's collecting plan highlights California's diversity of peoples and cultures. Omca's collections acquisition practices for artifacts use a lens of equity and reparation. In fy23, the Museum received eight distinct gifts consisting of 156 objects. Highlights of omca's art acquisitions this year include wayne thiebaud's dark cake (1983), katy grannan's anonymous, bakersfield, ca (2011), and ins ixierda and lacy johnson's hex the patriarchy (2022). The Museum also acquired two new large collections: the calli americas poster collection and the dugan aguilar collection and archive. These donated collections came to omca from family members or private collectors who entrusted these objects to the Museum's care.omca also hosts an online dorothea lange digital archive httpsdorothealangemuseumcaorg Nearly 50,000 photographs from activist photographer dorothea lange are available at no charge on our website. These photos portray essential workersmany of whom were immigrantsand the broken promises of american entrepreneurship that echo today.