These disjointed disciplines don’t detract from the togetherness you feel in the studio; safariiiCAMP’s residents are constantly consuming, critiquing and encouraging each other’s work. Co-founder Amal says that this camaraderie is where the Black Panthers come into the treehouse.
“Just the existence of this space is radical,” she said. “The space literally just being there for us to create and to not be forced into working all the time and being isolated breeds the ideas for us to [cause] change and not be so separate.”
The space is expanding this Spring as the studio begins part two of their biannual application cycle, accepting applications from now until April 12. Craftsmanship is an obvious consideration, but applicants also have to pass a vibe check of sorts.
During interviews safariiiCAMP’s onboarding committee will be looking for candidates that mesh well and further their third space ambitions as they add events like artist workshops, fashion shows and parties with live music in the coming year.
True to their ethos, Adeeb believes that residents’ relationships with one another directly impact their creative potential within the studio.
“The main thing we're looking for is, how do you take problems? You're surrounded by 55 other people. The likelihood of you having a problem is very high,” he said. Ultimately, he asks “Will you be comfortable and enjoy yourself here? Will you be able to make anything here if you're not comfortable or able to take up space?”
Occupancy has hovered around 50 residents for the past few recruitment cycles, but as they expand the space’s offerings they may also expand their talent pool.
“Honestly, I feel like with each recruitment season we're realizing we have more and more space every time,” Amal said. “The space is so huge, if it was being used to its full capacity we would have way more people which is crazy because before we would be like, ‘Okay, we can't even take 50.’”
As the community grows, so do their offerings. Historically, non-residents have mostly interacted with the studio by attending one-off events as well as their monthly Bay Bazaars — marketplaces with live music, food and drinks where artists can sell their wares.
This year Adeeb and Amal are giving residents more ownership of the studio by encouraging them to host their own events, starting with educational workshops on their various mediums. Before now the married duo have managed all the event planning, but after a recent event hiatus they’re ready to share the workload with their fellow artists.
“We took an event break for the past few months, just because we were burnt out from doing at least three events a month, and it was just kind of spreading ourselves too thin,” Amal said. “This season, we're trying to move forward with a little bit more calmness and intentionality.”
One artist has already taken initiative by launching a new, permanent addition to the studio. Resident ceramicist Itai Renat established a pottery studio, Mud Lab, within safariiiCAMP in January that offers lessons, firing services and clay for purchase.
Individual workshops are still in the works, but luckily they’ve already laid some groundwork — in New York. safariiiCAMP has a sister event series in Brooklyn, spearheaded by their long-time, long-distance resident artist, Maddi Minnicozzi, last October.
After five years in the Bay, two of which with safariiiCamp, Maddi moved back to her home state last May with plans to make safariii’s community bicoastal. There’s no permanent studio space yet, which gives her the freedom to focus on artist workshops before launching a sister studio to host resident artists and large scale events like Bay Bazaar.
Since both collectives have programs that the other lacks, Maddi, Adeeb and Amal are all comparing notes.
“We've done the research here — I've made the mistakes and the edits and had the conversations on how different things could be better, and vice versa for them,” she said. “They have all this information on how the markets work, so I feel like we’re at the beginning stages of what we both want, which is like, ‘how do we lift each other up?’”
These biweekly workshops called recess — fittingly hosted at Brooklyn’s Playground coffee & wine bar — are a stepping stone toward the kind of community that Maddi found here in the bay.
“It was a space that I had never experienced before,” she said. “As a very independent ‘I'm getting all this stuff done,’ type of a person it’s a breath of fresh air to be like, ‘Oh, I'm getting this thing done and I also have 60 people behind me who have my back.’”
Having each other’s backs is safariiiCAMP’s modus operandi, and in the long-term they’d like to extend this support to the broader community. They took a notable step in this direction last summer by hosting the protest party, Bay Area Solidarity Strike (B.A.S.S.) alongside AMOR DIGITAL, DJ Fridge, FAKE and GAY, Lower Grand Radio, NO BIAS and Program audio.
The event was a protest against the DJ event series Boiler Room, who were planning to hold a rave in San Francisco on the same date. Boiler Room had recently been acquired by a subsidiary of the private equity firm KKR, which has holdings in Israeli companies that support the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
This rave never came to pass — local talent refused to cross the picket line and Boiler Room consequently cancelled the event.
Adeeb and Amal are both open to throwing similar events in the future, mentioning ongoing human rights issues abroad in Iran and Sudan as well as domestically with ICE. There are no current plans for such events, but according to Adeeb “there’s always an opportunity for [them] to do better.”
“We could always, you know, put 10 or 15% profits towards them, and I think that would always make a difference,” he said. “Right now myself and Amal are still honestly figuring out the structure.”
Time will tell how all these new ventures manifest, but whether you’re a creative looking for community or a local looking to support the arts, this magic treehouse is worth the climb.
It’s not every day that you climb off the streets of East Oakland into a magic tree house, but for some lucky artists it’s all but routine. Local arts collective safariiiCAMP is home to 55 artists ranging from electric cellists to roboticists, all of whom use the 5,000 square foot warehouse as both a workshop and a third space.
The collective’s co-founders Adeeb Haidari, 27, and Amal Alyousfi, 25, valued creativity and community above all when they started safariiiCAMP in 2022, and that ethos still guides them as they explore and expand the studio’s potential.
This eclectic space sprang from eclectic inspirations — the Black Panther party and The Magic Treehouse book series. As far as magic goes, Adeeb says that the studio’s charm is in its approachability.
“I think to come here and to see like-minded people who want to make a difference, who want to make something, who don't have this level of ego or expectation, [who] just want to exist and want better for the world — that is the magic in itself,” he explained. “Other people tell me that they feel this when they're in here, they don't feel intimidated.”
Artists come and go as they please, using the space for work, organized community events and casual hangouts. In a given hour you may see residents chatting over cigarettes, playing literal saws (on your right), recording DJ sets, firing up kilns and sewing machines, practicing drum solos — all things eccentric and esoteric.
Playground x safariiiCAMP pop-up, November 14, 2024
safariiiCAMP Widens Their Tent
“It was a space that I had never experienced before,” she said. “As a very independent ‘I'm getting all this stuff done,’ type of a person it’s a breath of fresh air to be like, ‘Oh, I'm getting this thing done and I also have 60 people behind me who have my back.’”
Having each other’s backs is safariiiCamp’s modus operandi, and in the long-term they’d like to extend this support to the broader community. They took a notable step in this direction last summer by hosting the protest party, Bay Area Solidarity Strike (B.A.S.S.) alongside AMOR DIGITAL, DJ Fridge, FAKE and GAY, Lower Grand Radio, NO BIAS and Program audio.
The event was a protest against the DJ event series Boiler Room, who were planning to hold a rave in San Francisco on the same date. Boiler Room had recently been acquired by a subsidiary of the private equity firm KKR, which has holdings in Israeli companies that support the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
This rave never came to pass — local talent refused to cross the picket line and Boiler Room consequently cancelled the event.
Adeeb and Amal are both open to throwing similar events in the future, mentioning ongoing human rights issues abroad in Iran and Sudan as well as domestically with ICE. There are no current plans for such events, but according to Adeeb “there’s always an opportunity for [them] to do better.”
“We could always, you know, put 10 or 15% profits towards them, and I think that would always make a difference,” he said. “Right now myself and Amal are still honestly figuring out the structure.”
Time will tell how all these new ventures manifest, but whether you’re a creative looking for community or a local looking to support the arts, this magic treehouse is worth the climb.
These disjointed disciplines don’t detract from the togetherness you feel in the studio; safariiiCamp’s residents are constantly consuming, critiquing and encouraging each other’s work. Co-founder Amal says that this camaraderie is where the Black Panthers come into the treehouse.
“Just the existence of this space is radical,” she said. “The space literally just being there for us to create and to not be forced into working all the time and being isolated breeds the ideas for us to [cause] change and not be so separate.”
The space is expanding this Spring as the studio begins part two of their biannual application cycle, accepting applications from now until April 12. Craftsmanship is an obvious consideration, but applicants also have to pass a vibe check of sorts.
During interviews safariiiCamp’s onboarding committee will be looking for candidates that mesh well and further their third space ambitions as they add events like artist workshops, fashion shows and parties with live music in the coming year.
True to their ethos, Adeeb believes that residents’ relationships with one another directly impact their creative potential within the studio.
“The main thing we're looking for is, how do you take problems? You're surrounded by 55 other people. The likelihood of you having a problem is very high,” he said. Ultimately, he asks “Will you be comfortable and enjoy yourself here? Will you be able to make anything here if you're not comfortable or able to take up space?”
Occupancy has hovered around 50 residents for the past few recruitment cycles, but as they expand the space’s offerings they may also expand their talent pool.
“Honestly, I feel like with each recruitment season we're realizing we have more and more space every time,” Amal said. “The space is so huge, if it was being used to its full capacity we would have way more people which is crazy because before we would be like, ‘Okay, we can't even take 50.’”
As the community grows, so do their offerings. Historically, non-residents have mostly interacted with the studio by attending one-off events as well as their monthly Bay Bazaars — marketplaces with live music, food and drinks where artists can sell their wares.
This year Adeeb and Amal are giving residents more ownership of the studio by encouraging them to host their own events, starting with educational workshops on their various mediums. Before now the married duo have managed all the event planning, but after a recent event hiatus they’re ready to share the workload with their fellow artists.
“We took an event break for the past few months, just because we were burnt out from doing at least three events a month, and it was just kind of spreading ourselves too thin,” Amal said. “This season, we're trying to move forward with a little bit more calmness and intentionality.”
One artist has already taken initiative by launching a new, permanent addition to the studio. Resident ceramicist Itai Renat established a pottery studio, Mud Lab, within safariiiCamp in January that offers lessons, firing services and clay for purchase.
Individual workshops are still in the works, but luckily they’ve already laid some groundwork — in New York. safariiiCamp has a sister event series in Brooklyn, spearheaded by their long-time, long-distance resident artist, Maddi Minnicozzi, last October.
After five years in the Bay, two of which with safariiiCamp, Maddi moved back to her home state last May with plans to make safariii’s community bicoastal. There’s no permanent studio space yet, which gives her the freedom to focus on artist workshops before launching a sister studio to host resident artists and large scale events like Bay Bazaar.
Since both collectives have programs that the other lacks, Maddi, Adeeb and Amal are all comparing notes.
“We've done the research here — I've made the mistakes and the edits and had the conversations on how different things could be better, and vice versa for them,” she said. “They have all this information on how the markets work, so I feel like we’re at the beginning stages of what we both want, which is like, ‘how do we lift each other up?’”
These biweekly workshops called recess — fittingly hosted at Brooklyn’s Playground coffee & wine bar — are a stepping stone toward the kind of community that Maddi found here in the bay.
Artists come and go as they please, using the space for work, organized community events and casual hangouts. In a given hour you may see residents chatting over cigarettes, playing literal saws (on your right), recording DJ sets, firing up kilns and sewing machines, practicing drum solos — all things eccentric and esoteric.
It’s not every day that you climb off the streets of East Oakland into a magic tree house, but for some lucky artists it’s all but routine. Local arts collective safariiiCAMP is home to 55 artists ranging from electric cellists to roboticists, all of whom use the 5,000 square foot warehouse as both a workshop and a third space.
The collective’s co-founders Adeeb Haidari, 27, and Amal Alyousfi, 25, valued creativity and community above all when they started safariiiCAMP in 2022, and that ethos still guides them as they explore and expand the studio’s potential.
This eclectic space sprang from eclectic inspirations — the Black Panther party and The Magic Treehouse book series. As far as magic goes, Adeeb says that the studio’s charm is in its approachability.
“I think to come here and to see like-minded people who want to make a difference, who want to make something, who don't have this level of ego or expectation, [who] just want to exist and want better for the world — that is the magic in itself,” he explained. “Other people tell me that they feel this when they're in here, they don't feel intimidated.”
Playground x safariiiCAMP pop-up, November 14, 2024
safariiiCAMP Widens Their Tent
“It was a space that I had never experienced before,” she said. “As a very independent ‘I'm getting all this stuff done,’ type of a person it’s a breath of fresh air to be like, ‘Oh, I'm getting this thing done and I also have 60 people behind me who have my back.’”
Having each other’s backs is safariiiCamp’s modus operandi, and in the long-term they’d like to extend this support to the broader community. They took a notable step in this direction last summer by hosting the protest party, Bay Area Solidarity Strike (B.A.S.S.) alongside AMOR DIGITAL, DJ Fridge, FAKE and GAY, Lower Grand Radio, NO BIAS and Program audio.
The event was a protest against the DJ event series Boiler Room, who were planning to hold a rave in San Francisco on the same date. Boiler Room had recently been acquired by a subsidiary of the private equity firm KKR, which has holdings in Israeli companies that support the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
This rave never came to pass — local talent refused to cross the picket line and Boiler Room consequently cancelled the event.
Adeeb and Amal are both open to throwing similar events in the future, mentioning ongoing human rights issues abroad in Iran and Sudan as well as domestically with ICE. There are no current plans for such events, but according to Adeeb “there’s always an opportunity for [them] to do better.”
“We could always, you know, put 10 or 15% profits towards them, and I think that would always make a difference,” he said. “Right now myself and Amal are still honestly figuring out the structure.”
Time will tell how all these new ventures manifest, but whether you’re a creative looking for community or a local looking to support the arts, this magic treehouse is worth the climb.
Playground x safariiiCAMP pop-up, November 14, 2024
These disjointed disciplines don’t detract from the togetherness you feel in the studio; safariiiCamp’s residents are constantly consuming, critiquing and encouraging each other’s work. Co-founder Amal says that this camaraderie is where the Black Panthers come into the treehouse.
“Just the existence of this space is radical,” she said. “The space literally just being there for us to create and to not be forced into working all the time and being isolated breeds the ideas for us to [cause] change and not be so separate.”
The space is expanding this Spring as the studio begins part two of their biannual application cycle, accepting applications from now until April 12. Craftsmanship is an obvious consideration, but applicants also have to pass a vibe check of sorts.
During interviews safariiiCamp’s onboarding committee will be looking for candidates that mesh well and further their third space ambitions as they add events like artist workshops, fashion shows and parties with live music in the coming year.
True to their ethos, Adeeb believes that residents’ relationships with one another directly impact their creative potential within the studio.
“The main thing we're looking for is, how do you take problems? You're surrounded by 55 other people. The likelihood of you having a problem is very high,” he said. Ultimately, he asks “Will you be comfortable and enjoy yourself here? Will you be able to make anything here if you're not comfortable or able to take up space?”
Occupancy has hovered around 50 residents for the past few recruitment cycles, but as they expand the space’s offerings they may also expand their talent pool.
“Honestly, I feel like with each recruitment season we're realizing we have more and more space every time,” Amal said. “The space is so huge, if it was being used to its full capacity we would have way more people which is crazy because before we would be like, ‘Okay, we can't even take 50.’”
As the community grows, so do their offerings. Historically, non-residents have mostly interacted with the studio by attending one-off events as well as their monthly Bay Bazaars — marketplaces with live music, food and drinks where artists can sell their wares.
This year Adeeb and Amal are giving residents more ownership of the studio by encouraging them to host their own events, starting with educational workshops on their various mediums. Before now the married duo have managed all the event planning, but after a recent event hiatus they’re ready to share the workload with their fellow artists.
“We took an event break for the past few months, just because we were burnt out from doing at least three events a month, and it was just kind of spreading ourselves too thin,” Amal said. “This season, we're trying to move forward with a little bit more calmness and intentionality.”
One artist has already taken initiative by launching a new, permanent addition to the studio. Resident ceramicist Itai Renat established a pottery studio, Mud Lab, within safariiiCamp in January that offers lessons, firing services and clay for purchase.
Individual workshops are still in the works, but luckily they’ve already laid some groundwork — in New York. safariiiCamp has a sister event series in Brooklyn, spearheaded by their long-time, long-distance resident artist, Maddi Minnicozzi, last October.
After five years in the Bay, two of which with safariiiCamp, Maddi moved back to her home state last May with plans to make safariii’s community bicoastal. There’s no permanent studio space yet, which gives her the freedom to focus on artist workshops before launching a sister studio to host resident artists and large scale events like Bay Bazaar.
Since both collectives have programs that the other lacks, Maddi, Adeeb and Amal are all comparing notes.
“We've done the research here — I've made the mistakes and the edits and had the conversations on how different things could be better, and vice versa for them,” she said. “They have all this information on how the markets work, so I feel like we’re at the beginning stages of what we both want, which is like, ‘how do we lift each other up?’”
These biweekly workshops called recess — fittingly hosted at Brooklyn’s Playground coffee & wine bar — are a stepping stone toward the kind of community that Maddi found here in the bay.
Artists come and go as they please, using the space for work, organized community events and casual hangouts. In a given hour you may see residents chatting over cigarettes, playing literal saws (on your right), recording DJ sets, firing up kilns and sewing machines, practicing drum solos — all things eccentric and esoteric.
safariiiCAMP Widens Their Tent
It’s not every day that you climb off the streets of East Oakland into a magic tree house, but for some lucky artists it’s all but routine. Local arts collective safariiiCAMP is home to 55 artists ranging from electric cellists to roboticists, all of whom use the 10,000 square foot warehouse as both a workshop and a third space.
The collective’s co-founders Adeeb Haidari, 27, and Amal Alyousfi, 25, valued creativity and community above all when they started safariiiCAMP in 2022, and that ethos still guides them as they explore and expand the studio’s potential.
This eclectic space sprang from eclectic inspirations — the Black Panther party and The Magic Treehouse book series. As far as magic goes, Adeeb says that the studio’s charm is in its approachability.
“I think to come here and to see like-minded people who want to make a difference, who want to make something, who don't have this level of ego or expectation, [who] just want to exist and want better for the world — that is the magic in itself,” he explained. “Other people tell me that they feel this when they're in here, they don't feel intimidated.”