Rock Paper Scissors Collective

Rock Paper Scissors Collective (RPSC) is a volunteer-run community arts space in downtown Oakland, California that is dedicated to strengthening its local community and encouraging alternative, sustainable practices. It was formed in 2004 by a group of emerging artists working in the visual arts, crafts, film, music and writing. A year later, the group opened a storefront space offering free and low-cost classes, curated and open submission art shows, and a retail outlet for DIY clothes, crafts, zines and music. There are currently nine members of the collective who “have visionastic passionate driviness.”   

Classes are low-cost or free and are often produced in collaboration with local community groups. For example, RPSC is working with St. Vincent de Paul on a series of workshops on refabrication or making new fashion out of old clothes. Other classes and workshops have included quilting, screen printing, queer radical figure drawing, sewing, composting, and zine making.      

In 2006, RPSC was among the first eight galleries in the Northgate and Temescal neighborhoods to participate in Oakland’s First Friday Art Walk along 23rd Street. Now known as Oakland Art Murmur and operated as a separate nonprofit, it includes receptions at twenty-one galleries and nine mixed-use art spaces, as well as street performances, one-night art installations, and social and political activities.