TAX RELEASE: art installation and public shredding event
October 25, 2026 11:00 am
Tax papers meet public art on College Avenue
Sunday, October 25, from 11 am to 4 pm, Local Economy at 6028 College Ave in Oakland is hosting a thoughtful art gathering with Galen Cranz, UC Berkeley Professor of the Graduate School in Architecture.
The room will center on a large installation of Cranz’s own tax returns from 1963 through 2018. That is a lot of paper. It is also a very familiar kind of paper, the kind many of us keep in folders, boxes, and drawers long after we stop needing it.
Local Economy has the feel of a neighborhood space where an idea can breathe. It is small enough to feel personal, and open enough for people to linger, look closely, and talk. That setting fits this project well, since the work is about time, record keeping, and the strange weight of paperwork in everyday life.
Cranz is the main presence here, sharing a lifetime of documents as an art installation. Berkeley Shreds will also be part of the day, with secure bins available for free document shredding. Guests can bring their own tax papers older than 7 years and shred them by hand onsite, or drop them for secure shredding.
There is something oddly satisfying about turning old paperwork into a public act. You can come for the art, bring a stack of your own records, or just see what decades of tax filing looks like when it is taken out of storage and shown all at once.
It is a quiet kind of local event, but one that might stick with you the next time you open a file cabinet.
Join Galen Cranz, UC Berkeley Professor of the Graduate School in Architecture, at Local Economy for an installation of her 1963-2018 tax returns, so she can see, and share, an accumulation of bureaucratic effort that is personal to her and relatable for us all. View the scale of her returns, and bring your own tax documents (older than 7 years!), to shred manually onsite, or to be dropped for free in secure bins for shredding by Berkeley Shreds before her lifetime of documents are released.
The exhibition highlights the collective effort that filing taxes requires, and asks us to think about what uses of our time could be more productive.