Self-Portraits of Many Kinds Bring Oakland Into Focus

When pablo circa told me that he and Essi Westerman, two photographers from Oakland, were curating an exhibition that features even more talented photographers from the Town — 42 to be exact — I had questions.

Especially after he told me that every single image in the show falls under his definition of a “self-portrait.”

The exhibition, Street Stories: Oakland in Focus, will kick off with a free opening night celebration on Friday, July 11 at 464 9th St. in Old Oakland. It will be on display for a month, viewable by appointment until the exhibition’s closing event during the first week of August.

circa tells me that this collective collage of intimate imagery started with an open submission process; artists chose one photo from their archive to display. “In effect,” he says, “each image is a self-portrait.” But pablo circa’s definition of a self-portrait is a bit different from whatever the dictionary is talking about.

“I believe a photograph to be a self-portrait,” he says, explaining that any image made by a human manually using a camera is a product of a person being present in that environment, being inspired to click the shutter and being able to compose the image in a way that does their subject justice.

“I truly believe that every single image is a self-portrait,” circa reiterates during a recent phone call. And for this exhibition in particular, he says, the aim is to highlight how every single person who makes a portrait has an original perspective, especially in this place we call Oakland.

“We all have our unique ways of engaging with the city around us,” circa says. “We have 42 different artists who are in their relative communities, bringing their relative experience, all under one roof, to make it an even more dynamic and saturated experience in the space.”

The show will feature black-and-white as well as color images; photos from artists who shoot analog and digital; people who publish on Instagram, Substack and their own websites. Visual storytellers gateway.cookies, Sabrina Sellers and HMTWNHERO will have their images mounted next to work from the likes of Rhonda M. Smith, Kori Suzuki and Yameen.

circa, who is also the co-founder of the Oakland Street Photography Collective and The Cameras + Coffee Club, understands the importance of getting photographers, and people in general, together.

“I know that xenophobia and fearmongering is huge, especially now with the distance that comes with social media — and not having to engage with different communities that you can hold an opinion about,” says circa. “The way to overcome that is to actually engage with the community around us.”

He laments negative portrayals of Oakland in the media. If people actually took the time to engage and have a conversation, he says, they’d find a lot similarities in the people around them. But building community, much like making a self-portrait, requires curiosity, composition and patience. You have to “slow down, stop, and engage with one another,” circa says, adding, “the more that we know one another, the more that we can potentially support and care for one another.”

On Friday night, as NOSEI SUN ROOM provides a soundtrack for the evening, attendees will gather to see images of each other: reflections of individuals, coming together to create a much larger picture of what Oakland truly is.

‘Street Stories: Oakland in Focus’ opens Friday, July 11, 5–8 p.m. at 464 9th St., Oakland.