Category: Past

BOTH PERFORMANCES HAVE REACHED CAPACITY – JOIN WAITLIST HERE

X’ene’s Witness is a contemporary opera conceived and directed by multidisciplinary artist Justen Leroy, and commissioned and presented by LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division).

A continuation of Leroy’s critically acclaimed installation Lay Me Down in Praise (2022) presented by the California African American Museum and Art + Practice, X’ene’s Witness employs sound as an entrypoint to emphasize Black Environmentalism within the Anthropocene, the current geological age in which humans are the foremost influence on climate and ecosystems.

Through the performance, Leroy aims to foreground the unfiltered emotion, a sensual reckoning, that can only exist at the juncture where words break down. Perhaps the current moment, in which we face the inconceivable scope of climate disaster, may only be felt. Utilizing sound and movement to fill the gap created by the failure of language, Leroy invokes the history of Black vocal traditions, particularly R&B and Soul vocal nuances that communicate resistance and liberation.

Composed by Leroy and Alexander Hadyn, the score alludes to contemporary anxieties and terror. Classical musician and performance artist X’ene Sky lends voice and piano as the oracle and vessel for Earth’s expression, while movement artist Qwenga interprets the grievances of the planet felt in the body. X’ene’s Witness is an attempt to create space where climate consciousness can be accessed without words, or frameworks–rather relying on sound to start conversation. Leroy contends that the musical stylings–the screams, vocal runs, wails–of Black vocalists can act as the score for the planet’s stirrings, felt in the tectonic shifts of the Earth, or the silent sighs of trees.

X’ene’s Witness is made possible with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, Marciano Art Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, and the MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and Mellon Foundation.

Special thanks to Ace Hotel Los Angeles.

Justen Leroy (b. 1994, Los Angeles) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator, currently living in Los Angeles, whose sonic and performance work investigates the traditions of Black sound as it relates to spirituality and geology. His most recent work, Lay Me Down In Praise, is a three-channel visual and sound installation that surveys our current climate crisis and environmental racism. Previously, his work has been exhibited as part of Hammer Museum’s Made In LA 2020 Biennial and in 2022 he co-curated NOAH DAVIS at The Underground Museum alongside Helen Molesworth. Currently, Leroy is Director of Public Programs and Community Outreach at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA).

X’ene Sky is a performance artist, pianist, singer, composer and educator based in Houston and Accra. Her work engenders a rhizomatic approach to the topics of enslaved Africans, queerness, inheritance, musical repetition, nature in particular the genealogy of trees and soil in West Africa and the American South. Her work relies heavily on play, movement and release via screaming, laughing, singing and other visceral modes of expression. She is concerned with questions of personality and who we are outside of our name, class and education. Her work currently centers around concealment, flying and the lineage of slave technologies.

Image by Micaiah Carter

Past Programs

December 8, 2023 | 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM 

Join us for a closing ceremony to remove the poison within the belly of the serpent. Opening with a musical performance by the band Priestusssy, the audience is invited to close the evening with a collective cleansing ritual. Bring your own hammer.

September 14, 2023

Opening ceremony led by Irka Mateo — a Dominican Taíno ceremonialist and spiritual healer — to activate the healing energy of the serpent spirit on the land.

September 3 – October 1, 2023

A workshop series led & created by Star Feliz of Botánica Cimarrón for folks directly impacted by the carceral system in partnership with Dignity & Power Now (DPN) and Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND).

Revolutionary Plant Power is a four part workshop series about the transformational power of plants to heal ourselves and the world. Our time together will be a crash course on the basics of at home herbal medicine-making. Taught from a decolonial perspective – this herbal medicine practice focuses on Afro-Indigenous ancestral wisdom and the radical creative power of our imagination when we’re in connection with the cycles of nature.

About the work

In the Belly of the Serpent is a sculptural work meant to invoke our collective imagination, to envision the abolishment of existing global systems of exploitation. We’re tasked in helping the healing of the Great Mother, often represented by a serpent in the Taino culture. The center point of the mud-built earth mound is an engorged stomach; new opportunities for world-making have been obstructed within this belly of creation by the insatiable extraction of natural and biotic resources for economic gain. In tandem with the same water which flowed through the historic Zanja Madre, as well as Afro-Arawak power plants and mystic symbols studied and employed by the artist, the serpent emerges as an activated force of rebirth.

By utilizing this form, and connecting it to the rehabilitating power of earth and water, Feliz aims to create a sacred space for park visitors to reflect on the potentialities of the future, and then dream them into reality. Conceptually informed by postcolonial feminisms, Caribbean folk healing traditions, and prehistoric earthworks, the mud material references both the mudbrick architecture of West Africa and Southern California. For Feliz, building with materials from the surrounding environment is root medicine for connection, belonging, and remembrance for diasporic populations.

About the Artist

Star Feliz (b. 1992, Lenapehoking, New York, NY) is an artist and healer living and working on Tongva land (Los Angeles, CA). Feliz illuminates the processes of world-building as they braid back together the strands of life within their Afro-Taino lineage of the Dominican Republic and the wider Caribbean diaspora that were so violently fragmented since the onset of European colonization. Working across media, their conceptual installations take the form of maps, songs, dimensions, and talismans. Through the exploration of the twinned histories of humanity and the earth, a unique visual lexicon emerges that embraces the mundane and the unknowable as sacred. Often functioning as wayfinding tools, these interventions bring an inter-dimensional perspective to the forefront and make manifest the transcendent possibilities between the scientific, the intuitive, and the fantastical. While investigating universal phenomena like loss and desire, they engage with the theoretical touchstones of feminist thought, the queer radical tradition, contemporary Black liberation movements and land rematriation. Under the moniker of Priestusssy they create experimental devotional music with the earth through intimate narratives of transformation.

Feliz’ artistic practice has developed in tandem with their healing practice within movements for radical change. After more than ten years of intensive study and community practice, they currently steward their ancestral Indigenous knowledge-ways under the independently-run project of Botánica Cimarrón. Born of Afro-Taino traditions of the Caribbean, Botánica Cimarrón is a brand focused on healing marginalized people’s relationship to the earth through innovative tools and imaginative experiences that ensure the thriving futures of all living systems. In the past, they co-founded initiatives such as Abuela Taught me, an Afro-Taino Two-Spirit decolonial healing space; Homecoming, a QTBIPOC birth justice collective and Lenapehoking Herbalists Collective, an herbal mutual aid hub.

Feliz has performed and exhibited nationally and internationally including The Kitchen, New York, NY; The Oregon Contemporary, Portland, OR; The Horse Hospital, London, UK; The Latinx Project at NYU, New York, NY; Articule, Montreal, Quebec; and others. They have been awarded fellowships, residencies, and grants at ACRE, Steuben, WI; Summer Forum for Inquiry and Exchange, Kaneohe, HI; Mohn LAND Grant, Los Angeles, CA; Printed Matter Emerging Artist Publication Grant, New York, NY; International Center of Photography Community Fellowship, New York, NY. Their work is part of the collections at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture / NYPL, New York, NY; The Joan Flaschs’ Artist Book Collection, Chicago, IL; The Library at the International Center of Photography, New York, NY. They are a graduate of the MFA program at UCLA’s department of Interdisciplinary Studio.

Project Credits

In the Belly of the Serpent by Star Feliz is supported by the Mohn LAND Grant.

The Mohn LAND Grant is funded through the generosity of Jarl and Pamela Mohn. Over a five year cycle (2022-2027), this initiative directly invests in emerging Los Angeles based artists, providing them with a platform to present site-responsive, transdisciplinary work across LA County. Support through this program is awarded annually to a cohort of emerging artists, giving them their first opportunity to present a large-scale commissioned public project.

LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Stacy and John Rubeli, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation. LAND is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition.

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today at nomadicdivision.org.

LAND and the artist would like to thank the following individuals for their support in realizing the work: Stephanie Campbell and the staff of Los Angeles State Historic Park; producer Irina Gusin; fabricator Christopher Wawrinofsky; artist assistants Steph Lister, Javi Pineda, and Nin Saucedo; graphic design Jimena Game; and volunteers David Alas, sar artoonian, Blessing Greer, Charles Westcott, Jessa Shwayder Carta, Avery Collins-Byrd, Audrey Harrison, Hannah Taylow, Brielle Brilliant, Luke Godinez, Dani Gonzalez, Ash Hoyle, Lily Null, Camille Kelley, Shabina Toorawa, Darlene Escobedo, Angela Pastor, Wendy Jaime, and Justi Sexton.

Image courtesy Gina Clyne

Video by Vladimir Santos

CYCLES
Sunset Activation + Performance
Friday, July 28
6:30pm
Los Angeles State Historic Park
Free / No RSVP Required

In a sunset activation + performance, Adee Roberson channels oceanic and cosmic sounds through synthesizer, percussion and voice, accompanied by special guest Nailah Hunter on Harp. Hunter is a multi-instrumentalist and composer whose music for harp, electronics and voice shimmers with spiritual radiance, full of magic, wonder, and healing energies.⁠

Opening Reception
Saturday, May 20
3 – 7pm

Adee Roberson’s Tempo (Cosmogram #1) invokes African and Black diasporic rituals and symbols, offering a site for healing and care practices to all who are seeking. A spiral with no beginning and no end, the cosmogram is a connection between the physical and spiritual worlds, representing the eternal seasons of a life cycle: dawn, midday, sunset, midnight, and back to dawn. Rebirth and renewal. The structure––here consisting of stones that bring strength and stamina––captures an axis between worlds, a portal to commune with ancestors and the spirits of the cosmos. In a series of public performances, artists and collaborators will be invited to work on the cosmogram, harnessing the power of the stones in their subjective actions, and releasing the energy outwards.

The installation of this sculpture is part of LAND’s Gatherings series, a multi-year and site responsive project centered around the Los Angeles State Historic Park. LAND’s Gatherings series is an invitation to reimagine how knowledge is held and shared in service of communal forms of wellbeing. Following the present calls to reimagine civic space and ways of gathering, Gatherings constellates artists who weld ritual, myth, ancestral knowledge, and/or communal practices to navigate and reimagine the world. Gatherings is presented as a series of public installations, performances, collaborations, and offerings, the evolving nature reflective of the organic ways in which constellations of care are formed. Previous chapters included presentations of artists Chris Emile, Kathryn Garcia, veronique d’entremont, and iris yirei hu in collaborations with the late Tongva elder Julia Bogany and Tongva poet Megan Dorame.

LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Stacy and John Rubeli, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation. LAND is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition. 

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today at nomadicdivision.org.

Special thanks to Irina Gusin, producer.

Opening Reception
Saturday, May 20
3 – 7pm

STAR GAZER is a cooperative sculptural installation meant to help us navigate our present moment, while situating ourselves in relation to the North Star (Polaris). Maria Maea’s practice is deeply rooted in her family lineage and her inherent connection to agriculture, while also exploring the exchange of knowledge and ideas possible through collaborative creation. Over the course of this exhibition, Maea will engage with local community members to share experimental Samoan weaving techniques, and hold space for mutual learning and dialogue. Through focusing on this communal effort, Maea generates connection to ancestry while nourishing the present.

The installation of this sculpture is part of LAND’s Gatherings series, a multi-year and site responsive project centered around the Los Angeles State Historic Park. LAND’s Gatherings series is an invitation to reimagine how knowledge is held and shared in service of communal forms of wellbeing. Following the present calls to reimagine civic space and ways of gathering, Gatherings constellates artists who weld ritual, myth, ancestral knowledge, and/or communal practices to navigate and reimagine the world. Gatherings is presented as a series of public installations, performances, collaborations, and offerings, the evolving nature reflective of the organic ways in which constellations of care are formed. Previous chapters included presentations of artists Chris Emile, Kathryn Garcia, veronique d’entremont, and iris yirei hu in collaborations with the late Tongva elder Julia Bogany and Tongva poet Megan Dorame.

LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Stacy and John Rubeli, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation. LAND is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition. 

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today at nomadicdivision.org.

Special thanks to Irina Gusin, producer.

Images by Gina Clyne.

for the sake of dancing in the street is a group exhibition celebrating the interconnectedness of feminist and queer resistance. Collectively the work documents and amplifies individual acts of resistance as well as historical and ongoing global feminist protest movements, including the current uprisings in Iran–creating connections between these movements across space and time. Archival materials, videos, zines and posters trace these connections and create new reverberating calls to action. Central to the exhibition is a focus on dance as a liberatory practice, using disruption, joy and irreverence as critical tactics.

The exhibition features installations by LASTESIS, Morehshin Allahyari and Yasmine Nasser Diaz, in conversation with works by Ava Ansari, Geochicas, and archival materials compiled by Caitlin Abadir-Mullally and Raja Bella Hicks. An original print by Entangled Roots Press is featured in the gallery space and available as a takeaway. 

As part of for the sake of dancing in the street, LAND is thrilled to present For Your Eyes Only (FYEO)  by Yasmine Diaz. FYEO is the latest iteration of multidisciplinary artist Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s bedroom installation. The space contains signifiers familiar to SWANA* communities, but relatable to many adolescents of the diaspora. Against the graphic pink wallpaper, a two-channel video includes a projection of women and non-binary persons dancing in a reel of online selfie videos. A second video montage of news clips featuring women-led political rallies from around the Global South plays on a 90’s-era television set. FYEO presents a layered constellation of interrelated realities, spanning borders, identities, and time, aligning along intersectional and transnational movements of solidarity. The project intends to create a space to strengthen bonds between female and non-binary diasporic communities. By juxtaposing the diasporic dilemma alongside ongoing struggles for rights by women across the region and beyond, the FYEO installation generates complex yet hopeful connections rooted in possibilities for the future. 

The exhibition and associated programming were conceived and organized in collaboration with OXY ARTS, LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division), and Yasmine Nasser Diaz.

Opening Reception
Saturday, June 3
6-8pm

Celebrate the opening of for the sake of dancing in the street with a live DJ, food, drinks and dancing along with a special dance performances activating the exhibition. TCS (Tea Devereaux, Simrin Player, and Chryssa Hadjis) will perform an original dance piece commissioned in response to Yasmine Nasser Diaz’s installation, For Your Eyes Only. The performance will be set to the FYEO soundtrack composed by Carol Ohair, who will also be DJing throughout the night. 

Performance times: 6:30pm & 8pm

About Yasmine Nasser Diaz

Yasmine Nasser Diaz is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice draws from nuanced, discordant, and evolving concepts of culture, class, gender, religion, and family. She uses mixed media collage, photo-based fiber etching, immersive installation, audio, and video to explore connections between personal experience and larger social and political structures. Born in the United States to parents who immigrated from the highlands of Southern Yemen, her youth was shaped by traversing the discordant environments of a tightly collectivist Yemeni diaspora, ‘90s  inner-city Chicago, and Western society that prizes individualism and consumerism. 

Diaz uses her work to navigate these experiences while exploring themes of gender and bicultural identity; family honor, shame and reputation. She sees her practice as a place of relevance for others, particularly those of the growing multicultural diasporas of the Global South who have migrated to areas of the Global North. Diaz is especially interested in complex narratives of third-culture identity, their precarious invisibility/hyper-visibility, and the friction often experienced between the individual and the collective.

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for the sake of dancing in the street Programing Schedule
All programs to take place at OXY Arts.

• 6/22: Social Media For Social Justice Workshop (in partnership with the Feminist Center for Creative Work)
• 7/8: Raï Dance Workshop with Esraa Warda – RSVP HERE
• 7/8: Raï Dance Performance with Esraa Warda and Fella Oudane
• 7/20: JOYLAND (2022) Screening
• 7/27: Selected Shorts Screening (curated by Womxn in Windows)
• 7/29: Poetry Reading with TQR Mag

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LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Stacy and John Rubeli, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation.

LAND is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition. 

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today.

Documentation screening short film screening, and conversation
moderated by Juan Silverio, LACE Assistant Director of Programming
Simultaneous interpretation (Eng/Spa) will be available

Join LACE and LAND with Jackie Amézquita and rafa esparza for a reflexión of the weekend-long Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil), presented across Los Angeles over the weekend of March 25–26, 2023. The program will kick off with a short film premiere where attendees can witness the Gemidos caravan’s journey, beginning in DTLA and ending at MacArthur Park. Following the screening will be a conversation between Amézquita and esparza, sharing their experience and thoughts on journeying throughout Los Angeles with 178 immigrants re-embodied through this work. 

The screening and conversation will be paired with a light reception before and after the program. This program will be recorded and made available online at a later date. 

Click here to RSVP.

About the project

Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil) by Jackie Amézquita addresses the cruel and fatal reality of detainment camps that immigrants encounter upon their arrival to the U.S. (List of Deaths in ICE Custody). The names of the deceased are created with soil from the state where the individual died, and combined with cornflour (masa), salt and rain water to symbolize that despite their death these individuals still inhabit a physical space. Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil) becomes a place of healing, memorializing, and encouraging social engagement.

Read Matt Stromberg’s interview with Jackie Amézquita in Hyperallergic, “Remembering the Migrants Who Died in US Detention” by Matt Stromberg 

Jackie Amezquita (b. 1985) is a Central American artist based in Los Angeles, California. Amézquita was born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and migrated to the United States in 2003. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from ArtCenter College of Design and an Associate degree in Visual Communications from Los Angeles Valley College. She recently completed her Master of Fine Arts in the New Genres program at the University of California, Los Angeles (2022).
Studio portrait of Jackie Amézquita. Photo: Juan Silverio 

rafa esparza (b. 1981, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles) received a BA from University of California, Los Angeles in 2011. Solo exhibitions have been held at Artists Space, New York (forthcoming); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2019); ArtPace San Antonio (2018); and Ballroom Marfa (2017). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Commonwealth and Council, Mexico City (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson (2022); Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston (2020); San Diego Art Institute (2019); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016). esparza is a recipient of a Pérez Prize (2022), Latinx Artist Fellowship (2021), Lucas Artist Fellowship (2020), Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2017), Art Matters Foundation Grant (2014), and California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2014). He has participated in residencies at Artpace San Antonio (2018) and Wanlass Artist in Residence, OXY ARTS, Los Angeles (2016).

esparza’s work is in the collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; San Jose Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kadist Art Foundation; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles.

About LACE
LACE both champions and challenges the art of our time by fostering artists who innovate, explore, and risk. We move within and beyond our four walls to provide opportunities for diverse publics to engage deeply with contemporary art.  In doing so, we further dialogue and participation between and among artists and those audiences. welcometolace.org 

Support
Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil) is supported by Angeles Art Fund, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Mohn LAND Grant, AltaMed, National Performance Network (NPN), and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. 

LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Stacy and John Rubeli, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation.

Los Angeles Nomadic Division is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition. 

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today.

RSVP HERE

LAND, OUTFEST PLATINUM, LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), and Rusha & Co. present the premiere screening and live musical performance of Ladies’ Lair Lake, a feature-length musical film from artist Trulee Hall. 

February’s REDCAT screening will be the world premier of Ladies’ Lair Lake, in the process of being acquired by LACMA. The film will be  accompanied by a live performance of the film’s score with some very special musicians.

Ladies’ Lair Lake reflects Hall’s feminist-oriented and richly imaginative art practice. With 16 original songs over the course of 55 minutes, Hall immerses viewers in her mythical, choral, and playful world. Ladies’ Lair Lake narrates a creation myth that begins not with man but with woman, and explores themes of disobedience and loss of innocence; the clash between patriarchal religion and matriarchal goddess worship; the complexities and loss of autonomy that accompany motherhood; and the interplay of free will and fate, of human desire and divine intervention. The mythological narrative takes place in an edenic forest setting, beside a lake inhabited by a sorority of nymphs overseen by a benevolent yet mischievous goddess. The sisterhood, chameleon-like and at-one with their surroundings, coexists in harmony with nature, adopting the characteristics and appearance of water, land, and flora.

This screening is the launch of the new year-round OUTFEST PLATINUM screening series that brings experimental and cutting edge film, music, and art to the forefront of LGBTQIA+ storytelling. Notoriously provocative, perversely confrontational, and wickedly weird Platinum celebrates the adventurous renegades of queer culture. The mission of this series is to bring visibility to the diversity of the LGBTQIA+ experience and to empower new types of storytellers and their stories to help build empathy to drive meaningful social change. 

The screening coincides with a solo exhibition of Trulee Hall’s work at Rusha & Co: Plays on Foreplays on view from February 4 – March 11, 2023 at 244 West Florence Avenue, Los Angeles.

In 2022, LAND presented Ladies’ Lair Lake as a multimedia exhibition, the most expansive presentation of Hall’s body of work to date. The exhibition invited viewers to immerse themselves in Hall’s universe, brought to life through video, sculpture, painting, sound and installation. 

This presentation is made possible by Stacy & John Rubeli. Special thanks to Maccarone Gallery.

Conductor – Chris Hsieh

Flute – Christine Tavolacci

Reed & Voice – Lu Coy

Trumpet – Jessica Lipman

Trombone – Rose Doyelmason

Percussion & Drumset – Corey Fogel & Chris Hadley

Vocal Percussion – Vincent Bantasan (Beatbox Panda)

Keyboard – Mark Riordan

Keyboard & Voice – Nick Foulk

Violin – Laena Mayers-Ionita

Cello – Angel Kim Spicer

Lead Vocalists – Julia Rahm & Sharon Choi Kim

Trulee Hall

Trulee Hall’s work presents a surreal geography drawing on motifs of the domestic, the decorative, and the erotic. The artist’s creative practice spans video, sculpture, painting, audio composition, and choreographed dance. Hall integrates these mediums into immersive installations. These vignettes offer multiple representations of a non-narrative visual subject, replayed through painting, sculpture, and video amalgams of CGI, claymation, puppetry and live action performance.

Hall draws from an early upbringing immersed in American Southern culture, with its aesthetic and decorative formalities, conservative religious bent, and the wealth and depth of its musical traditions. In her work she contrasts with the aesthetics and spirit of familiar subcultures and conjured mythologies that stand in direct opposition.

Hall received her BFA from the Atlanta College of Art in 1999 and her MFA from CalArts in 2006. Her work has been shown at the Rubell Family Collection, Hammer Museum, MOCA, Deitch Projects, The Armory Show, Paramount Studios for Frieze Art Fair, Redcat, Villa Schöningen, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), Barrick Museum of Art, Maccarone Los Angeles, Michael Benevento Gallery, and the Billy Wilder Theatre, among numerous other exhibitions and film screenings internationally. The artist recently premiered Tongues Duel the Corn Whores, an Opera at the Zabludowicz Museum in London. In September 2020, the Zabludowicz Museum premiered a solo exhibition of Hall’s work.

OUTFEST

Founded by UCLA students in 1982, Outfest is the world’s leading organization that promotes equality by creating, sharing and protecting LGBTQIA+ stories on the screen. For forty years, Outfest has showcased thousands of films from around the world, educated and mentored hundreds of emerging filmmakers, and preserved more than 40,000 LGBTQIA+ films and videos. Outfest programs include The Outfest Platinum Platinum is our signature showcase dedicated to film, live performance, and multi-media works that defy boundaries, stretch cinematic sensibilities, and display the innovators of our time.The Outfest Screenwriting Lab, which has mentored and helped launch the careers of nearly 150 screenwriters, and The Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, which, in partnership with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, is the only film archive in the world exclusively dedicated to preserving LGBTQIA+ images, among others.

LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation.

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today.

LADIES’ LAIR LAKE LIBRETTO

PRESS RELEASE

RSVP HERE

LAND, The Box, and Hauser & Wirth present Paul McCarthy’s WS White Snow, the artist’s largest single work presented in the US, originally exhibited at the Park Avenue Armory (New York) in 2013.

In November of 2022, The Box initiated an Institutional tour of WS White Snow, with curators and leadership from the Getty, MOCA, the Hammer, the Broad, the ICA LA, LAND, LAXART, LACMA, and the Lucas Museum. This think tank has resulted in the rapid action of this joint presentation of WS White Snow, to coincide with Frieze Los Angeles, as a means to garner support for permanent preservation of the work.

Like many of LA’s legendary secrets, WS White Snow has been hidden in plain sight for the past decade: an 8,800-square-foot artificial forest and a faithful replica of the artist’s family home have stood fully installed in a warehouse in East LA. The accompanying 7 hour four-channel video projection, edited by Damon McCarthy and taken from 350 hours of recorded video from the 30 days of performance in 2012/13 will be projected alongside the installation. Damon McCarthy the co-director and producer of White Snow also edited the double and single channeled videos that were included in the original installation at the Armory in NYC that will not be included in this presentation. This will be the first and possibly only time audiences in Los Angeles will be able to experience the work in situ, with the future of the work uncertain.

WS White Snow is an explicit confrontation with American consumerism and grandiosity that feels as salient presently as it did ten years ago when it debuted. Viewing the work today unearths new layers: reckoning with economic, social, and climate breakdown, we are confronted with the berserkers, the dregs of the party, and the putrid residue from ignoring what frightens us within ourselves. Clues strewn throughout the forest and cottage of WS White Snow point to the screeching halt of the bacchanal in our own culture, Through physical absurdist performances that may at times invoke repulsion, McCarthy, as Walt Paul with Elyse Poppers as White Snow, turn a mirror on the deeper psychological complexities that lurk beneath American Exceptionalism, the upside down of the myths of integrity & civility we craft to define our “best selves.” The subversion of Walt Disney’s Snow White—a syrupy spin of a dark German folktale—chips at the archetypal narrative: there are no heroes or villains to be found here, not even among the symbolism of a prized American storytelling trope. The deeply personal installation details from McCarthy’s own biography illustrate the artist’s acknowledgement of the stakes. Prescient, McCarthy plays with the roles of artist and audience in a culture increasingly obsessed with content creation. Are there boundaries to what we will produce and consume for entertainment?

Paul McCarthy WS White Snow is made possible with support from Hauser & Wirth.

The exhibition includes images and themes that some visitors may find disturbing. Admission is restricted to audiences over 17.

PRESS RELEASE

About the Artists

Paul McCarthy

Paul McCarthy is widely considered to be one of the most influential and groundbreaking contemporary American artists.  Born in 1945, and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, he first established a multi-faceted artistic practice, which sought to break the limitations of painting by using unorthodox materials such as bodily fluids and food. He has since become known for visceral, often hauntingly humorous work in a variety of mediums – from performance, photography, film and video, to sculpture, drawing and painting.

McCarthy earned a BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1969, and an MFA in multimedia, film and art from USC in 1973.  For 18 years, he taught performance, video, installation, and art history in the New Genres Department at UCLA, where he influenced future generations of West Coast artists.  McCarthy’s work comprises collaborations with artist-friends such as Mike Kelley and Jason Rhoades, as well as his son Damon McCarthy.

Damon McCarthy

Born in 1973, and raised in Los Angeles, California, Damon McCarthy earned a BA in film at CalArts in 1998. For the last 23 years, he has collaborated with his father, Paul McCarthy, as co-director and editor on many complex performative video installations and large-scale film projects. Their collaborative works have been shown extensively worldwide including exhibitions at the Volksbühne, Berlin (2015); Park Avenue Armory (2013); Hauser & Wirth New York (2013); The Box, Los Angeles (2012); Sammlung Friedrichshof, Zurndorf (2010); and Hauser & Wirth Zürich (2007).

Collaborative works include: Theatrical productions of NV (2022) and A&E (2022); Night Vater (2019); Donald and Daisy Duck Adventure, DADDA (2017); Coach Stage Stage Coach, CSSC (2016); WS White Snow (2012-13); White Snow Mammoth (2012); Rebel Dabble Babble (2012); Caribbean Pirates (2005); Piccadilly Circus (2003); Bunker Basement (2003).

About The Box LA

The Box LA was formed in 2007 by Mara McCarthy (Principal/Curator) with her father, Paul McCarthy, when they realized how many critically important artists in their community had been overlooked and were not being shown. From its initial location in Chinatown to its current home in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles, the gallery has honed a respected program, and exhibits artists across generations who work in a variety of mediums including performance, installation, dance, drawing, painting, sculpture, video and photography. With a robust public program series, The Box LA offers audiences multiple access points to engage both forgotten art histories and the work of emerging artists who straddle a similar ethos of risk and experimentation. The gallery recognizes the role of the art market as a means for artists to enter or re-enter art histories, and balances commercial interests against the cultural, political, psychological and spiritual content that the work may offer. 

Following the gallery’s move to the Arts District in 2012 and the continued growth of the program, McCarthy is now interested in expanding the notion of a commercial gallery space. In recent years, she has facilitated more artist-centered programs, sought new ways to work with more diverse audiences, and continued to engage politically and psychologically dynamic work. The gallery is also interested in engaging with and supporting nonprofit organizations as part of its overall program. In 2021/22, the gallery’s parking lot served as a makeshift residency for Pieter Performance Space, whose work led to the exhibition, Knees, Schools, Urges. The Box has also collaborated with and served as host to homeLA’s public education program, The We in Me, which considers homelessness through the lens of empathy and civic engagement. A low-income housing prototype, Jardin des Estrellas, spearheaded by gallery artist Corazon del Sol, is located in the gallery parking lot and serves as a site for her advocacy and efforts to realize the project on a larger scale throughout the city.

About Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by Partner and President Marc Payot and CEO Ewan Venters in 2020. A family business with a global outlook, Hauser & Wirth has expanded over the past 30 years to include outposts in Hong Kong, London, New York, Southampton, Los Angeles, Somerset, Menorca, Monaco, Zurich, Gstaad and St. Moritz. The gallery represents over 90 artists and estates who have been instrumental in shaping its identity and who are the inspiration for Hauser & Wirth’s diverse range of activities that engage with art, learning, conservation and sustainability.

Hauser & Wirth opened its Los Angeles location in 2016 in the heart of the burgeoning Downtown Arts District at 901 East 3rd Street. Occupying the former Globe Mills flour mill complex, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles presents art exhibitions, events and learning activities which connect with the local community in a vibrant architectural space. This February, Hauser & Wirth will expand its Los Angeles presence by opening a second location in West Hollywood. Located at 8980 Santa Monica Boulevard, the new gallery will be housed in the site of a former vintage automobile sales showroom housed in a Spanish Colonial Revival style building and will complement the Arts District venue.

Film Credits

Concept and Script – Paul McCarthy

Directed by – Paul McCarthy, Damon McCarthy

Produced by – Damon McCarthy, Alexis Hudgins

Line Producer – Karen McCarthy

Post Production Sound Design and Editing – Damon McCarthy

Cinematography – Damon McCarthy, Naotaka Hiro, George San Vargas

Audio – Dean S Lee

Cast

Paul McCarthy – Walt Paul

Elyse Poppers – White Snow, Red

Aiden Ashley – White Snow, Yellow

Charlotte Stokely – White Snow, Blue

Jack Spralja – Bashful

Marc McHone – Doc

Trevor Rounseville – Dopey

Michael Villar – Grumpy

Michael Sielaff – Happy

John Drue Worrell – Too Happy

Joseph Carl White II – Sleepy

Randy Tobin – Sneezy

Eric Manuel – Humpey (Humper)

Prince #1 – Josh Rivers

Prince #2 – Jay Smooth

Prince #3 – Richie Calhoun

WS Presentation Installation

Damon McCarthy, Alex Stevens, Brian Young, Dylan Huig, Erick Wilczynski, Jeremiah McCarthy, Jorge Montano, Lancel Reyes, Landon Wiggs, Lee Randle, Michael J Gonzales, Molly Tierney, Sean Townley, Sid Dueñas, Trevor Rounseville

Image Caption: Paul McCarthy, Installation view of WS White Snow, 2011–2013, Artist’s studio, Los Angeles, CA. Wood, steel, foam, mulch, artificial foliage, lights, various materials. 35’H x 141′ x 148′ © Paul McCarthy. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joshua White

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LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation.

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today.

Announcing Mohn LAND Grants, a new and ambitious initiative to introduce, and invest in, emerging Los Angeles artists, providing them with a platform to present site-responsive, transdisciplinary work across Los Angeles County and to serve as a first formal public presentation. Over a five year cycle (2022-2027), up to 20 artists will receive Mohn LAND Grants to realize intentional and community-focused public projects ranging from large-scale sculpture commissions to street level interventions. The initiative reflects LAND’s mission to empower artists to have autonomy over the presentation of their work and in more direct relationship with the public. Founded in 2009, LAND is recognized for supporting artists who work outside of traditional models and who are deeply embedded in their communities. Mohn LAND Grants was developed in collaboration with art collectors and philanthropists Pamela and Jarl Mohn, who are committed to supporting emerging L.A. artists.

Mohn LAND Grants is a new, five year cycle of support for emerging artists in L.A. County who work site-responsively and who have yet to receive major institutional support and/or gallery representation. Artists are selected by a curatorial committee at LAND and based on a criteria of artistic excellence, a depth of community engagement, and the potential of the support to elevate their career at this moment in their overall practice and progression. Artists of all mediums are considered. An inaugural 2022 cohort will each receive grants of $5,000 and a significant level of curatorial and production support to realize their first significant public presentation in L.A. County in 2023.

“I am madly in love with what is happening in the art community of our Los Angeles, particularly with emerging artists who are experimenting and being adventurous,” said Jarl Mohn. “A unique strength of LAND is the investment in artists whose work is collaborative, community-driven, and energizing. We look forward to introducing new artists and a very engaging multi-year cycle of art and public programs.”

The inaugural cohort of Mohn LAND Grant recipients produce outstanding, socially concerned, transdisciplinary work across a range of disciplines, mediums, and modes, addressing issues such as extraction and exploitation of natural resources to narratives of migration and oppression of gendered and racialized peoples.

Maria Maea (b. 1988, Long Beach, CA) is a Samoan-Mexican American artist whose multidisciplinary practice encompasses film, sculpture, and performance. Her work investigates the “brown body’s (dys)function as capitalist commodity, as a resistance to somatic fixity, an examination of the multiplicities of consciousness, and survival as immigrants and first generation Americans.” LAND is supporting Maea to realize a large-scale sculpture to be sited at the Los Angeles State Historic Park as part of “Gatherings,” an ongoing exhibition series that constellates artists who weld ritual, myth, ancestral knowledge, and/or communal practices to navigate and reimagine the world.

Felix Quintana (b. 1991, Lynwood, CA) is a first generation Salvadoran-American visual artist and educator. He received an MFA in Photography from San Jose State University and a BA in Studio Art from Cal Poly Humboldt. Quintana’s work spans photography, digital media, and collage. Solo exhibitions include Residency Art Gallery, Cypress College, and SOMArts Cultural Center. Select group exhibitions include LAXART, Vincent Price Art Museum, Center for Photography Woodstock, San Jose ICA, SFSU Art Gallery, and Arion Press, among others. His work has been featured in The Guardian, NPR, Los Angeles Times, KCET, Hyperallergic, and Art News, among others. His work can be found in the permanent collections of Oakland Museum of California, Altamed Art Collection, and Cal Poly Humboldt. Quintana lives, works, and teaches in Los Angeles. LAND will commission Quintana to create a series of street-level interventions, reinterpreting the artist’s unique visual vocabulary as physical collages of everyday vernacular of Southeast LA, and a series of community workshops.

Jackie Amézquita (b. 1985, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala) migrated to the U.S. in 2003. Her work explores narratives of migration and how people navigate power structures and unites performances, site specific activations, installations and organic materials such as masa, soil, salt, hydrated lime, and produce to explore a visual language that investigates modes of adaptation, and integration in the aftermath of migration. LAND will present the artist’s “Gemidos de La Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil),” a body of work that integrates two Lists of Deaths in ICE Detention Centers between 2003-2017 and 2018-October 2023. LAND, in partnership with Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), will install the works on trucks and caravan them across Los Angeles to sites currently being used as detention centers, “giving voice to those no longer with us, in a way embodying them and providing them the journey they were not able to complete.”

Star Feliz (b. 1992, New York, NY, Lenapehoking) is an interdisciplinary artist and medicine person with roots in Ayiti, or the Dominican Republic. Their work spans sculptural installation, time based media, and book forms that explore “earth-based pathways for disarming apparatuses of violence and their cycles of trauma.” LAND will support the artist to undertake their first large-scale public work, “In the Belly of the Serpent.” An adobe built serpent, recalling earth mounds made by ancient civilizations, will embody the cycle of rebirth and offer healing gateways for new stories. A companion website will invite the public to imagine rituals for earth healing from wherever they are in the world.

Photo by Star Montana.

Jackie Amézquita

Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailing of the Land/Soil)

Images by Gina Clyne.

Join LACE and LAND for the closing celebration of Jackie Amézquita’s Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailing of the Land/Soil). featuring a special performance by Dorian Wood and Michael Corwin and free tamales provided by Across Our Kitchen Tables for the first 100 guests (vegetarian options available). Eduardo’s Tamales will be on site providing additional tamales for sale (vegetarian options will be available). This gathering will take place as the culminating celebration after a weekend caravan across Los Angeles led by Amézquita, drawing attention to detention centers and pro-immigrant mutual aid organizations. Attendees will have the opportunity to take a closer look at Amézquita’s memorial panels!

Co-presented by LAND and LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)

Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailing of the Land/Soil) by Jackie Amézquita addresses the cruel and fatal reality of detainment camps that immigrants encounter upon their arrival to the U.S. 

Amézquita has created a mobile public installation of twelve panels (8’ x 4’) with names of immigrants that died in ICE detention centers. The names of the deceased are created with soil from the state where the individual died, and combined with cornflour (masa), salt and rain water to symbolize that despite their death these individuals still inhabit a physical space.

Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailing of the Land/Soil) becomes a place of healing, memorializing, and encouraging activism. The names of children who were victims of the detention centers are created with the documents that published their deaths, and mixed with chia seeds that ultimately will sprout from the letters themselves. Due to each name being created with its own unique mixture of soil and other natural ingredients, each name possesses its own unique texture and color palette, honoring each individual rather than reducing their lives to a statistic as the U.S. Government does. 

In March 2023 this mobile public installation will be activated in Los Angeles and surroundings. The panels will be transported on A frames trucks, to be exhibited while en route to each destination, accompanied by a caravan of cars. This project makes visible two public lists of deaths from ICE Detention Centers in 2003-2023 that will be presented in front of detention centers and pro-immigrant mutual aid organizations.

Amézquita’s project is integral to making the migration crisis visible. Through her use of transporting public documents that were found on ICE’s website (now removed), it is imperative to continue the dialogue about immigrants and the ways in which state-sanctioned violence and death are legalized and actively inflicted against migrants seeking refuge and a better quality of life.  

Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil) is supported by Angeles Art Fund, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Mohn LAND Grant, AltaMed, and National Performance Network (NPN).

The Mohn LAND Grant is funded through the generosity of Jarl and Pamela Mohn. Over a five year cycle (2022-2027),  this initiative directly invests in emerging Los Angeles based artists, providing them with a platform to present site-responsive, transdisciplinary work across LA County. Support through this program is awarded annually to a cohort of emerging artists, giving them their first opportunity to present a large-scale commissioned public project.

About the Artist

Jackie Amézquita (b. 1985) is a Central American artist based in Los Angeles, California. Amézquita was born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and migrated to the United States in 2003. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from ArtCenter College of Design and an Associate degree in Visual Communications from Los Angeles Valley College. She recently completed her Master of Fine Arts in the New Genres program at the University of California, Los Angeles (2022).

About our Performers

Dorian Wood is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Her intent of “infecting” spaces and ideologies with her artistic practice is born from a desire to challenge traditions and systems that have contributed to the marginalization of people. Wood has performed at institutions that include The Broad, Los Angeles, CA (2018), Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY (2023), Museo Nacional Del Prado, Madrid, Spain (2019), the City Hall of Madrid, Spain (2015) and Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris, Mexico City, Mexico (2019), and at festivals that include Festivals Kometa, Riga, Latvia (2016), Moers Festival, Germany (2017), Cully Jazz Festival, Switzerland (2015) and Saint Ghetto Festival, Bern, Switzerland (2017). From 2019 to 2020, Wood completed several successful international tours with her chamber orchestra tribute to Chavela Vargas, XAVELA LUX AETERNA. In 2022, Wood debuted her tribute to the singer Lhasa De Sela, entitled LHASA, at the Festival Internacional de Arte Sacro in Madrid, in collaboration with singer Carmina Escobar and composer Adrián Cortés. As a visual artist, Wood has created illustrations and video installations that have been exhibited in galleries around the world. They have also directed several short films, among them “The angel” (2023), Low’s “Disappearing” video (2021), “American Savagery” (2021), “FAF” (2021), “The World’s Gone Beautiful” (2020), “PAISA” (2019, co-directed with Graham Kolbeins), “O” (2014) and “La Cara Infinita” (2013). Wood is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award (2020) and the Art Matters Foundation grant (2020), and is also a MacDowell fellow (2022) and a Loghaven fellow (2022). Wood has released over a dozen recordings, most recently the album Invasiva (Dragon’s Eye Recordings, 2022). In 2023, Wood debuted Canto de Todes, a 12-hour composition and installation, at REDCAT in Los Angeles. www.dorianwood.com

Michael Corwin is a musician based in Los Angeles, and a graduate of CalArts. He has worked with artists like Correatown, Liz Pappademas and the experimental ensemble Killsonic, and has been a frequent collaborator with Dorian Wood for over 15 years. As a solo artist, he released the album Andalucía (2009) under the name Red Maids. Corwin is also an accomplished furniture maker.

About our Collaborators

Across Our Kitchen Tables curates, organizes, and hosts events and conversations that center BIPOC chefs and food systems workers. We consider the present and future of food through thoughtful dialogue on topics including cultural foodways, entrepreneurship, food activism, and health and wellness. https://www.acrossourkitchentables.org @acrossourkitchentables

Eduardo’s Tamales will be selling tamales from his newly donated Un Dia de Arcoíris, a tamalero cart designed by LA-based artist Ruben Ochoa for street vendors in partnership with Revolutionary Carts and Inclusive Action for the City. Ochoa has partnered with Revolutionary Carts and Inclusive Action for the City to raise funds and donated custom wrapped street vendor carts with Ochoa’s graphics functioning as social sculptures. https://www.inclusiveaction.org/ruben-ochoa-art @lalin.zuniga.10, @revolution_carts, @inclusiveaction, @rrrubenochoa

About LACE

LACE both champions and challenges the art of our time by fostering artists who innovate, explore, and risk. We move within and beyond our four walls to provide opportunities for diverse publics to engage deeply with contemporary art.  In doing so, we further dialogue and participation between and among artists and those audiences.

LAND’s 2023 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, the Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, Abby Pucker, Ben Weyerhaeuser, and the Poncher Family Foundation.

Los Angeles Nomadic Division is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition. 

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today.

LAND is pleased to be a partner organization of The California Monuments Consortium alongside The Free Republic of California, Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, and ESMoA. The California Monuments Consortium is a theoretical agency aimed to create communal, artistic and sustainable dialogues about statehood and monuments. ⁠
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The Consortium’s first endeavor is the Ojai Consortium Lab at the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation which will act as a think tank, research archive, community sounding board and organizing platform. A range of events and panels will highlight the mission and its underpinnings, while offering stakeholders the chance to interact with the space, conduct research, take polls, draft surveys and create artistic expressions.⁠
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Over a three month period, the Consortium’s statement will grow with input from a range of artists and community members. The hope is that the findings of these three months of interaction will become a springboard to physical manifestations of the ideas found therein. ⁠
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Physical components of the installation will include large scale vinyl installation in the windows, a library featuring an ever-growing selection of relevant books and maps of California, a communal workspace, as well as a community survey portal, an interactive area where visitors can reflect and envision.⁠

The Lab opens Saturday, September 10, 2022 with a Community Town Hall and Public Reception, 5:00 – 7:00 pm at the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation 248 S Montgomery, Unit A, Ojai 93023. The lab runs through November 6th.

About the partners:

The Free Republic of California is an ongoing conceptual piece by artist Cole Sternberg, which plays with notions of statehood and freedom by offering a vision for a more enlightened nation through the guise of Californian secession. Sternberg coordinates a variety of strategies for a state’s rebirth: alternative history and identity established in a new flag, photographic documentation, and ephemera; a constitution, budget, peace agreements, and international conventions in support of the environment and human rights; and, a proposed future conjured through sculpture, performance and engagement.

ESMoA is an art laboratory located in El Segundo, California and it is run by artlab21 Foundation. Our mission is to Spread the Spark of Creativity through the display and education of visual arts. ESMoA functions as a catalyst for creative thinking offering unique Experiences. The Experiences – our word for exhibition/exhibit – present a variety of media, including sculpture, painting, works on paper, performances, and photography. ESMoA was founded in 2013 by Eva Sweeney, Brian Sweeney and Bernhard Zünkeler.

Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation is committed to supporting and advocating the arts and sciences. Current initiatives include awards for visual artists, as well as The Ojai Institute, an artist-residency program in Ojai, that extends the dialogue between artists and the public through exhibitions and programs. Currently based in Ojai, California, the organization, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 2015 by artists, family, and friends to celebrate the legacy of esteemed art patron and private art dealer Carolyn Glasoe Bailey

LAND’s 2022 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation and the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Wilhelm Family Foundation, and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Brenda Potter, Abby Pucker, Jay and Deanie Stein Foundation Trust, and the Poncher Family Foundation.

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today.

LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) in partnership with Aaron Fowler, co-presents The Oasis, an experience  of Fowler’s N2EXISTENCE. N2EXISTENCE is a solution-based movement that enables people to use their passions to manifest new realities of freedom, founded by artist Aaron Fowler in 2020. N2EXISTENCE: The Oasis is an interactive creative space in which artists, makers, technologists, activists, and community organizers can come together to share their work, learn, access expensive technologies, engage in deep discussion, and explore their own creative visions.  N2EXISTENCE was the result of Fowler expanding his studio practice to building a shared vision, one that builds spaces providing community members the ability to experience the feeling of freedom that accompanies standing in, and living one’s dreams. As his studio practice expanded to not only include physical objects but reflected visions, he realized this could be a model anywhere for people to manifest their creative visions and impact their communities.

The Oasis is the result of a residency facilitated by LAND in the Residency space in Summer 2021, where Fowler met Inglewood-based peer specialist Divinity Warmsley and continued his work with activist and filmmaker Sultan Sharrief. Over the past year, they have collectively envisioned what is missing in the creative communities in South LA. Despite an influx of new residents and a multitude of creative apps for connecting, there are no accessible spaces open in the evening, where community members can imagine, engage, and manifest their creative visions leading to real impact. The Oasis is in essence a prototype that can be scaled in future iterations, including Fowler’s dream of an N2EXISTENCE town-hub constructed out of shipping containers. 

Over the course of the two months, Sharrief and Warmsley have an ambitious schedule of public programs, activating the space and providing exponential opportunities for collaboration. A sample of public programs includes CommuniTEA Conversation Series led by Warmsley, addressing issues such as parenting, local politics, technology and financial support. Sharrief will lead sessions with The Quasar Lab, his ongoing research lab that utilizes disruptive community organizing as a strategy for futurist design. At the end of the period, the community will be invited to propose their own events and programming, with a culminating public celebration. 

The Oasis is a creative solution, an ongoing experiment of structure and scale, manifestation in process. artist working in dialogue with his community, together creating an autonomous entity with large-scale social results.

This iteration of N2EXISTENCE is presented by LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division). The project was made possible with support from Angeles Art Fund

Special thanks to Residency Art Gallery.

Aaron Fowler

Aaron Fowler (b. 1988, St. Louis, Missouri) currently works in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, Los Angeles, California, and St. Louis, Missouri. Fowler received his BFA from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in 2011, and MFA from Yale University, in 2014. His work has been exhibited at New Museum, New York (2018); Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art, Georgia (2017); Saatchi Gallery, London (2017); Beeler Gallery, Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio (2016); Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles (2016); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2016); Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015); Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, North Carolina (2015); Thierry Goldberg Gallery, New York (2013); and Sophia Wanamaker Gallery, San José, Costa Rica (2012). He is a recipient of the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2015) and was an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014). @n2existence

Divinity Warmsley

Divinity Warmsley is CEO of The Peer Specialist LLC, a community based service that provides mental health and behavioral health supportive services to underserved communities in the Greater Los Angeles area. She has over 15 years experience in community engagement events, community outreach, group talk therapy, One on One talk therapy, facilitating active listening sessions, 90 days of evidence based peer support, life skills supportive services, service bridging and resource navigation. @thepeerspecialist.llc

Sultan Sharrief

Sultan Sharrief is a trans-media activist, filmmaker, and XR designer. He holds a BA in Film from University of Michigan, an MS in Comparative Media from MIT, and is a PhD candidate in Media Arts & Practice at USC. His directorial debut feature film, Bilal’s Stand, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and he has since produced four additional feature films and a TV program. In 2018 he founded the Quasar Lab at MIT, an institutional-hacking research lab that uses disruptive community organizing as a strategy for futurist design. @sultanreflects

LAND’s 2022 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation and the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Wilhelm Family Foundation and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors Karen Hillenburg, Brenda Potter, Abby Pucker, Jay and Deanie Stein Foundation Trust, and the Poncher Family Foundation. 

LAND is a member-supported organization. Support LAND’s free, public programming by becoming a member today at nomadicdivision.org.