Scott Ortega-Nanos
Scott Ortega-Nanos is a bookseller and community organizer in Oakland. His work explores the numerous ways in which books can be used as tools for resistance and liberation. In 2014, he started a yearlong project operating a community bookstore inside a building scheduled to be demolished for new condominiums. In early 2018, he (alongside founder Akande X,) helped start Maji Press, a community Afrofuturist newspaper. He was recently named as an exhibiting artist in the upcoming SOMArts exhibition Reorienting the Imaginaries, which will premiere his newest mixed-media installation, Pasyon: A Heuristic Pedagogy. Currently, Scott spends most of his time taking care of his daughter, Naima, and managing the Bookmark Bookstore in downtown Oakland.