In spring of 2012 Eduardo Pineda's ENGAGE: Mural Arts class began work on a three year project which created murals for the barrier fence surrounding the 601 City Center construction site in downtown Oakkland (bounded by 11th and 12th Streets, Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr. Streets) for Shorenstein Properties LLC. This was part of ENGAGE@CCA, a community-engagement program of CCA’s Center for Art and Public Life. In this first year, the class worked with residents of the Harrison Hotel to express important aspects of community – sense of place, nurturing support, and self-empowerment. The hotel was a residency program that transitioned people from homelessness to homefulness, and was a five-minute walk from the site. Six murals were produced for 12th Street side of the site. Students used residents’ personal stories as metaphors, weaving together urban architecture, landscape, and language in order to connect with the greater Oakland community. Interspersed between the murals were text panels with q…