Adia Millett
Public Art

Taking Flight, 2023
Lowell Park, Oakland, CA
Taking Flight, designed by Adia Millett, has been unvieled at the recently renovated and refurbished basketball coart at Lowell Park in West Oakland, in an expansive community collaboration envisioned and led by Emmy Award-winning actor Zendaya and her sister Kizzi Thompson, in partnership with the non-profit Project Backboard. Oakland businesses, artists, non-profits, and community leaders were invited to to participate in and support this project. 
 

Millett's multicolor design is inspired by the idea of communal levitation or the idea of lifting each other up like a child lifts a kite, a paper airplane, or a basketball. Traces of these objects and an ancestral mask can be found in the new design depicted on the court's surface. The bright red, blue, yellow, coal black and earthy brown hues are meant to evoke expansion, joy, and strength.

Learn more at projectbackboard.org