In fall of 2012 Eduardo Pineda's ENGAGE: Mural Arts class created murals for the People’s Grocery Garden and the California Hotel. The class worked with the People’s Grocery, a social justice and food advocacy organization that established an urban farm in the food desert of West Oakland. The mural project was for the California Hotel, on San Pablo Ave in Oakland near Emeryville, owned by the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, and where The People’s Grocery operated a community garden on the Chestnut Street side of the building. The historic hotel was under reconstruction. Students also helped to tend the farm and provided administrative support in order to better understand the role of the organization in the expansion of the urban food system. Remarkably students discovered a zoning ordinance that saved the newly planted West Oakland farm from imminent closure by the City. The class created seven mural panels – five for the San Pablo Avenue side of the Hotel, that were temporarily mounted on …
In fall of 2011 Eduardo Pineda's ENGAGE: Mural Arts class created murals for the Alameda County Community Food Bank (ACCFB), for the newly constructed storage and distribution facility. Student majors included graphic design, illustration, textiles, printmaking, writing & literature, individualized program, photography, sculpture, and painting/drawing. The collaborative design and painting process produced wood mural panels for the food sorting area, and a larger mural on canvas at the entrance to the facility. Students met with Food Bank staff to learn about the organization’s mission and observe the facility’s environment. The students also benefited from the architectural design of the warehouse produced by a previous CCA class — an Interior Design course taught by Amy Campos — in order to identify the best placement of the murals within the facility. In the panels, the students wanted to represent the transformation of food from packaged resource at the food bank to when it emerges at homes as bright …