People say we should be the change we want to see in the world, but rarely do those people take any kind of action themselves. Erin Salazar is San Jose’s artistic fulfillment of that sentiment. The artist, muralist, and seamstress is on a quest, advocating for large, public artworks in San Jose, with a particular emphasis on the rights of artists to be paid professional wages for their work. So far it’s been a success: with the help of a Knight Cities Challenge grant and a grant from San Jose Made, Salazar has created the Exhibition District, a group with an end goal of transforming over 40,000 feet of blank walls into original works of art. A graduate of San Jose State, Salazar is also an artist and she still creates, but she’s found almost a higher calling to beautify the city while simultaneously advocating for the rights of local artists.
“As of now, the murals that Exhibition District has done are kind of organized with one artist and a bunch of assistants, but we are working to be more inclusive in our selections. We also want to make sure that we are curating in a way that every mural is an extension of the artist’s portfolio, instead of forcing an artist to fit a certain mold. When it comes down to it, the goal of the Exhibition District project really is a collective want to make San Jose, and the whole area for that matter, look as beautiful on the outside as I feel it does on the inside.”
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