As change continues to roll through West Oakland, its arts community, itself feeling the pressures of gentrification, is making a stand at Oakland Museum of California, where the exhibition “Oakland, I want you to know …” opens this weekend.

The exhibition consists of structures depicting different West Oakland scenes: the living room of a Victorian home, the BART station, a newly constructed loft space, a re-creation of Seventh Street’s now-closed Esther’s Orbit Room nightclub, a community garden and, in the center of the gallery, a cityscape.

“Each of the buildings is a snapshot,” said co-curator Evelyn Orantes. “This little neighborhood that we’re creating, we’re setting the stage to inspire conversation.

“As Oaklanders, we worry about what change will bring. This is what we want to protect,” she said.

The key topic is gentrification and the economic forces lumbering through the city.

In discussing the loft exhibit, teacher, artist and exhibit co-curator Chris Treggiari referenced UC Berkeley urban studies lecturer Pietro Calogero’s work mapping the concentration of foreclosure activity in African-American communities and a history of redlining, citing “the long-term effect of policies that are inherently racist.”

For example, Treggiari said, the Federal Housing Authority deemed multicultural areas “not investment worthy” from the ’30s through the ’50s, exacerbating segregation.

“Policy can stem displacement,” Treggiari said. “Can we do something about it, or just leave it to the market?”

The loft scene includes community input he gathered with another artist, Peter Foucault, at construction sites, speaking with neighbors about “how much say do we have in what our city looks like structurally?” Treggiari said.

He said posters making a case for housing and tenant rights reflect “conversations around housing as a human right, that have been happening since the ’70s, but maybe not to the extent that we’re having now.”

The BART station features jazzier signage type than the usual BART system fonts, and an interactive map showing 13 sites connected to multimedia presentations of “West Side Stories”: residents’ perspectives recorded by Youth Radio participants.

The Victorian scene includes 600 “My Story” handmade books assembled by Oakland school kids, from 900 kits exhibition organizers distributed — a pretty impressive return rate, Orantes noted.

Also, there are a series of photographer Julie Plasencia’s “Chester Street” portraits of West Oaklanders posing outside their homes, beautifully showing the neighborhoods’ people in all their diversity.

For the Esther’s Orbit Room diorama, the music of Xavier Dphrepaulezz, a.k.a. Fantastic Negrito, provides the soundtrack. He’s out on tour, opening for Soundgarden leader Chris Connell and promoting his June release of “The Last Days of Oakland,” which is included in the soundscape.

Artwork on the wall references Slim Jenkins’ Blue Room at 1748 Seventh St., where Esther Mabry worked as a young woman before opening her own club just a few doors down.

Jenkins’ club, a more formal establishment, flourished beginning in the ’30s, when Seventh was known as “the Harlem of the West Coast” for its music.

“We’re showing where the magic happens,” Orantes said. “Part of why Seventh Street was so successful was it had a healthy black middle class,” she said.

“What happens when these people start being displaced? How do we support artists?” she asked.

Esther’s, a fixture on the blues and jazz scene since 1963, closed in 2011, a year after its founder, Esther Mabry, died at age 90. Its sign is still visible from passing BART trains.

Orantes said posters and billboards overlooking the middle of the gallery reflect “some of the anger that young people are feeling.”

“We are not here for your amusement,” one reads. “Don’t continue to make a mockery and trend of our struggles.”

“If this is a stage for community voice,” Orantes said, “we wanted to be very literal about that.”

Newcomers to Oakland should know, she said, “You’re a guest until you become part of the community. The youth are saying it in a very straightforward way.”

Also speaking in a straightforward way are Kelly Carlisle of Acta Non Verba Urban Youth Farm and Esperanza Pallana of the Oakland Food Policy Council, both featured in a community garden video.

Setting the stage for the history of community gardens in West Oakland, Pallana says in the video, was the food desert created “because of red-lining, lack of investment not only by banks but supermarkets. It was really about abandonment.”

The exhibition opens Saturday and runs through Oct. 30. For more information, go to http://museumca.org or call 510-318-8400.

Contact Mark Hedin at mhedin@bayareanewsgroup.com