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WALKS   WORDS   UPCOMING
Former Fresnans (2012-ongoing)

The Former Fresnans memory palace is opening for a tour this November.

A journey through an imaginary sculpture park in Fresno’s Tower District, this year’s walk will consider the traditional American ritual of Black Friday. The “Black Friday Tour” is a 60-minute walk focused on memory images created with former Fresnans who are actively spreading joy and love in their communities (for example, Alex Lawrence, the Executive Director of Trinity’s Services and Food for the Homeless, or CeCe Olesa, the founder of a body-positive beauty company that brings together and celebrates a “community of passionate and insightful women”). While the Friday after Thanksgiving is commonly associated with a shopping frenzy, the “Black Friday Tour” will focus on why we buy gifts in the first place: to share in a joyful celebration of our families and communities. 

Date: Friday, November 24, 2023
Time: 4:00 pm (75 minutes in total)
Meeting point: in front of Tower Theater
Cost: Free
Let us know your coming: blakemwalks@gmail.com

The walk is fully accessible. Please e-mail blakemwalks@gmail.com with any concerns about access or requests for accomodation.


A cherry tree with a large knothole in the back alley of Good Company Player’s Second Space. Inside the knothole is a chess board, with pieces resembling the Roosevelt School of the Arts’ Class of 2000. Created with Justin Weatherby.
Former Fresnans is sponsored by the Fresno Arts Council, who provide organizational support and fiscal receivership for the project.

Former Fresnans is an imaginary sculpture park in Fresno’s Tower District, based on the ancient Greek technique of the memory palace. Built with former Fresnan’s living in London, New York City, San Francisco and Oakland, each sculpture records the memories of a walk between two places the former Fresnan considered home in their new city. The resulting memory palace blends Fresno past and present.

The memory palace contains work created in collaboration with Courtney Amchislavsky, Kelsey Bergstrom Young, Duane Boutte, Tiffany Chandler, Andrew Guagliardo, Richard Giddens, Kenney Greene, Erin Jacoby Hickman, Kahliah Laney, Alex Lawrence, Phoebe Lehr, Patrick McNaughton, Bryan Miller, Carla Ogden, CeCe Olesa, Richard Sanchez, Ashley Semrick DesRochers, Grace Poole, Brett Van Aalsburg, Robert Voris, & Justin Weatherby.

I am currently looking for former Fresnans in New York City for one-on-one walks. Email blakemwalks@gmail.com to set one up.

For more information on the project, see my interview with Donald Munro in The Fresno Bee or my book chapter in New Directions in Radical Cartography.