Connectors to Our Shared Humanity

“Place of Worship: Shifting Landscapes of Faith in an American City”

Photographs by Nicolò Sertorio

First Presbyterian Church of Oakland

2619 Broadway, Oakland

May 9 through 31, 2025

“If you drove to work today you probably went by a dozen churches and didn’t even notice them,” remarked James T. Campbell, Professor of United States History and African American Studies at Stanford University, at the opening reception of “Place of Worship: Shifting Landscapes of Faith in an American City,” an exhibit of photographs by Nicolò Sertorio at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland. Sertorio, an Oakland-based artist “focused on the nature of co-existence, global and individual responsibility,” visited almost every place of worship in the city of Oakland—466 of them—over a five-year span, making a photographic record of each one.

Looking at a photo of Saint Albert the Great Priory Chapel, which is on the grounds of a verdant, tranquil campus where Dominican friars in white habits walk by—an unexpectedly serene island in bustling Oakland—I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that the reception was so coincidentally timely. Just the day before, the world’s eyes were fixed upon the loggia balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica to see the newly elected 267th pontiff, Pope Leo XIV. Obviously none of the houses of worship in Sertorio’s photographs are anywhere near as grand as Saint Peter’s, but they’re no less important.

Some of the structures Sertorio portrays are ornate in their architecture, others plain and simple, still others humble storefronts. But each of them—churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, shrines—is the locus of the religious and spiritual life of their communities. The exhibit is part of Oakland Faith, “a project to visually investigate the evolution of spirituality in contemporary urban environments.”

My partner and I have passed First Presbyterian’s gorgeous neo-gothic edifice countless times, usually on our way to the art galleries on nearby 25th Street, but we’d never been inside the church. Its parish hall is beautiful, and the Friday evening reception was well-attended, with a selection of Sertorio’s prints displayed on the spacious hall’s walls. Mounted on white Gatorboard, six to a group, his pictures are soft-toned black-and-white and rather stark. Yet that starkness intimates a timelessness, underlining and emphasizing each places’ sacred function.

The photographs themselves are at once quiet, strong, and gently affecting. Sadly, the curation left much to be desired, with the uppermost photos difficult to view, and bad lighting to boot. The many lovely crosshatched window muntins both distracted and detracted from the photos.

One of my favorite photos was of Greater Praise Christian Fellowship on MacArthur Boulevard. It’s a portrait of an abandoned church space marred by graffiti, its doorway a kind of holy refuge, a shopping cart and forlorn bicycle abiding on the sidewalk in front. Its history as a place of worship is poignantly recorded by Sertorio’s lens with respect, a melancholic sense of the past and present all at once.

During his portion of the talk, Sertorio, who was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and raised in Italy, said that “Places of worship are connectors to our shared humanity.” He also said that Oakland is becoming one of the most “de-churched” cities in the U.S.; a large number of worship spaces in Oakland have been shuttered, sold, abandoned, or razed to make way for condominiums or commercial buildings. Although Sertorio claims to be “spiritual but not religious,” he regards this trend as something to be lamented. The structures, he says, “all express the beliefs and aspirations of specific people living in a particular time and place; a continuing, shared human search for meaning.”

Also on display was a schematic arrangement, with the photographs in miniature showing where each religious edifice is geographically located in relation to the others. The top represents the hills, the bottom the bay, left for west, and right for east. I chatted with Brondon Reems, who pointed out the church where he is Senior Pastor, Center of Hope Community Church.

He invited me to come worship with his congregation. “I’m Catholic,” I demurred, though very appreciative of his gracious and warmly open offer. “Hey, you’ve got a new pope!” Reems exclaimed, shaking my hand in congratulations. “He’s a good guy.”

Sertorio has also collaborated with photographer J. Michael Tucker on a project called “People of Faith,” a second series of portraits of Oakland faith leaders in the spaces where they serve, some of which are accompanied by brief Soundcloud monologues about their spiritual lives and congregations. “Faith leaders,” Sertorio writes, “stand as both anchors and mirrors of their communities, reflecting the struggles, hopes, and transformations taking place around them.”

Tucker, who is Jewish, said that as a kid he went to Mass with his Catholic friends more often than he ever attended synagogue. Although he says that faith and tradition play an important role in his life, he was “turned off” by religion after his Bar Mitzvah at age 13. But he says that “the way in which faith and tradition have defined and often dictated the way people run their lives or want to run their lives is an integral part of why I’m photographing spiritual leaders.”

This photographic project is a beautiful, humane, and necessary one, highlighting the value of religious faith. According to Professor Campbell, the Bay Area is one of the least religious regions in the U.S., yet people of faith persevere despite places of worship closing down.

“They’re still doing the work that people of faith do,” he said. “Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, turning swords into ploughshares.”

Amen to that.

"Places of Worship" will subsequently be on view in Oakland at:

June 2025: Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church

July 2025: Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church

Mid-August to mid-September 2025: Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church

October 2025: Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church