The Florida town of Oakland brought contemporary art and local history together in the 2022 exhibitions Land, Water, Air and Old Town Road.
Presented at the Healthy West Orange Arts and Heritage Center, the joint display connected artistic interpretations of movement with the stories carried by the town’s streets and public spaces.
Movement across roads, water and sky
Land, Water, Air included work by Florida artists Racheal Foley, Adrienne Lee, Jambvant Ramoutar, Julio Milanes, Joseph Warren, David Minichiello, Anne Fanelli, Heather Lorenz, Loulia Kachirskaia and Carissa Imel, among others.
The artists addressed transportation and movement through roads, waterways, trains, cars, bicycles, boats and aircraft. The broad theme allowed different media and viewpoints to coexist while remaining connected with the physical ways people move through a place.
Street names as an archive
Old Town Road examined how Oakland’s street names preserved the memory of historic figures, pioneers and officials. When the town was formally mapped in 1886, its roads followed a simple numbered grid. In 1972, many were renamed to recognise people associated with Oakland’s development.
Historic photographs and objects traced the town’s citrus industry, its role as a Central Florida social centre and the people whose names entered its geography.
Permanent displays at the centre added further context, including a stained-glass window from the 1919 Oakland Presbyterian Church and a presentation on the preservation of the historic African American cemetery.
The paired exhibitions showed how contemporary art and historical research can illuminate the same place from different directions. One approached Oakland through movement and visual interpretation; the other through names, documents and material memory.