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Committee approves temporary ‘Happy Heavenly Birthday’ phone‑booth installation for Latham Square

Public Art Advisory Committee · April 6, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Oakland’s Public Art Advisory Committee approved a June temporary installation of repurposed phone booths from the ‘Happy Heavenly Birthday’ project to play prerecorded birthday messages honoring people killed by police. Curator BJ McBride and partners said programming may expand later; installation and maintenance plans were reviewed.

The Public Art Advisory Committee on April 6 approved a proposal to install a temporary public art project called Happy Heavenly Birthday at Latham Square.

Curator BJ McBride, who presented the project, said the multi‑format work grew out of a film series and a digital voicemail project that lets people call and leave “happy heavenly birthday” messages for individuals killed by police. McBride said the team repurposed roughly 20 phone booths and has tested the booths in…

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