Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle
Nov 2
Bayview-Hunters Point
Navigating The Historical Present: Bayview-Hunters Point
Navigating The Historical Present: Bayview-Hunters Point
Dye sublimation onto aluminum mural
“After two years of construction, San Francisco’s new Southeast Community Center celebrated its grand opening on October 22, 2022. The 45,000-square-foot building is the result of generations of environmental activism, with the original community center having opened in 1988 to offset the effects of the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant on the neighborhood.
Inside Center’s Alex Pitcher Pavilion is Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle’s “Navigating The Historical Present: Bayview-Hunters Point,” a hall-wide dye sub aluminum mural that collages washes of indigo paint with photographs from the neighborhood’s past and present. The images are a mixture of formal portraits and candid snapshots: a smiling sixth-grade class from 1954, a football player posing in his Junior 49ers uniform, and a view of Sam Jordan’s Bar on Third. Scrapbook-like, the mural will preside over community events that can open onto an outdoor amphitheater, where even more celebratory, smiling pictures will be taken.
The new Southeast Community Center stands out from its surroundings — for its shininess, spaciousness, and open, welcoming spaces — but it’s the building this area of San Francisco, now engaged in yet another battle for environmental justice, has long deserved. As sea level rise threatens to spread old pollution from the Hunters Point Shipyard, it’s the activity that will take place here that will truly shape the future of the neighborhood.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle (Olomidara Yaya) is a multidisciplinary visual artist, writer, performer, and healer. Her practice fluctuates between collaborations and participatory projects with alternative gallery spaces within various communities to intimate projects based on her private experiences in relation to historical events and contexts. Her practice serves as a bridge, merging the intersections of art, activism, spirituality, and healing as tools for retrieval. Her healing practice consists of being a catalyst for retrieval through reiki, sound healing, divination, channeling, and mediumship. A term that has become a mantra for her practice is the "Historical Present," as she examines the residue of history and how it affects our contemporary world perspective.
Her artwork and experimental writing have been exhibited and performed at The Studio Museum in Harlem, Project Row Houses, The Hammer Museum, The Museum of Art at The University of New Hampshire, SF MOMA, The BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and Páramo Galeria, Guadalajara, Mexico. The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Artforum, Hyperallergic, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and The New York Times have reviewed Hinkle’s work.
Hinkle is also the recipient of several awards, including The Cultural Center for Innovation’s Investing in Artists Grant, Social Practice in Art (SPart-LA), The Jacob K Javits Fellowship for Graduate Study, The Fulbright Fellowship, The Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artists Award, the SF MOMA 2019 SECA Award and The Hellman Fellowship from UC Berkeley. She has artworks in the private collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of Art at The University of New Hampshire, The San Jose Museum of Art, and SF MOMA. Her writing has appeared in Obsidian Journal, Artforum, and Among Margins: Critical & Lyrical Writing on Aesthetics. She is the author of Kentifrications: Convergent Truths & Realities (2018) published by Sming Sming Books & Occidental College and SIR (2019) published by Litmus Press.
