LoBot with Ghost Ship
This is an open letter to our community, from the former residents of the recently closed LoBot Gallery in West Oakland.
The last 96 hours have been a waking nightmare, waiting to hear from missing friends and grieving the loss of dear people in our community. So many have been confirmed deceased. We are struggling with hope and grief and trying to hold each other together as our vulnerable arts community faces this unfathomable tragedy. We are struggling to say goodbye to the people we danced with, performed with, nodded across the crowded venue to. These are the people who once made LoBot an art hub and underground treasure.
We are just a few days into a nightmare that is still unfolding. Bodies are still being carried from the warehouse that many friends called home, but already people outside of this community are calling for a crackdown on arts spaces, for more threats to our ability to survive and create in a rapidly gentrifying city that we helped build. We are trying to grieve, yet simultaneously feel called to defend the spaces that our deceased friends spent their lives making beautiful.
We are artists who also recently lived and worked in another Oakland warehouse that was not as well-equipped for a fire as it should have been, that was not retrofitted with a modern fire suppression system by the building owner, that was in a neighborhood hit hard by environmental pollutants. We so deeply feel the need for increased safety — but we are worried about what that might mean for our community.
At LoBot, a fire inspector visited our home following an anonymous “concerned citizen” complaint. Even though we had done our due diligence to keep our space as fire-safe as possible, and were not cited for any violations, our landlord told us to leave, and refused to negotiate a solution. The space we had spent 13 years cultivating–one in which we’d prioritized the safety of residents, artists, and those attending our events–was crushed in a matter of weeks, our home destroyed, and our ability to create pushed further into the margins.
Today, many of us have found housing in less-safe places, or continue to jump from one temporary crash pad to the next, clinging to our hope of making it in Oakland. Others have given up and been forced out of the Bay, losing the community they’ve spent years building.
This cannot be the answer.
Displacement continues to push Oakland artists out of their long-established spaces, forcing us to accept risks we shouldn’t have to. It is the responsibility of building owners to ensure the safety of their buildings and tenants, but these are often the only spaces made available to us. We are at the landlords’ mercy, and their bottom line can dictate the amount of protection that we have from disaster. Our homes are the leftover spaces–we tolerate the landlords’ negligence for our freedom; we understand their disinvestment as a sign of stability in this obscene rental market. We become desensitized to these conditions, as they have plagued most places that we call home and the venues where we’ve been able to feel truly alive.
Why do we gather in these spaces, these sometimes rickety, unequipped and dangerous spaces? Because they often have safe space practices–intentions to be anti-oppressive, inclusive and protective of those with marginalized identities, and to be more accessible than the alternatives. Because they make room for cultural activities that are not burdened by a need for profit, events that are strange, complicated, small, critical and underground. Because we can’t afford to go to shows with high cover charges. Because of the lack of all-ages venues. Because of potential harassment. Because we can’t risk being grabbed at a dance party where we aren’t surrounded by people who will defend us. Because we can’t go to shows where people are wearing scents, or where wheelchairs can’t get in the door.
We gather in these spaces because we aren’t afforded much physical safety in this quickly gentrifying city. Because when everywhere else is so dangerous, all we have is each other. And thus, it is indescribably painful to see the death of our friends being used to attack the form of safety we have built in each other.
We want safe buildings. We want fire exits and better staircases. We want our spaces retrofitted for modern fire suppression systems and alarms. Please help us build those things. But please do not contact the fire marshal, who will send letters to our landlords that put us at risk of being evicted, or who can “red-tag” our buildings for immediate displacement. (This is because, in Oakland, there is no such thing as a “no-fault” fire inspection -- a situation where potential problems can be simply noted by inspectors, then resolved with landlords and tenants in a logical, sensible manner, thereby preserving people’s homes and workspaces.) Most important: Please do not call the police, who put our bodies at risk. Please listen to this community before you try to protect us.
To our friends at Ghost Ship, we are with you. The artists of what was formerly LoBot Gallery are donating a portion of our security deposit to the Ghost Ship crowdfunding page, in the hopes that it helps rebuild some stability, that it helps support you. We are donating the rest in its entirety to small arts groups and communities at risk for displacement in Oakland. We call upon our former landlord, Katie Harmon (of the Shapiro Endowment Fund, which supports the Piedmont Beautification Foundation, among other organizations), along with all Oakland landlords who profit from artists and the arts, to contribute as well–to step up to support the ongoing survival of grassroots arts groups. Our hearts are grieving for our lost friends, hoping for those missing, holding those still waiting.
In solidarity,
Members of the LoBot Community
Oakland, California
12/6/2016
