WHEN: Thursday, Nov 17, 2022, 6:30pm
WHERE: The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 152 North Central Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012
ADMISSION: FREE.
Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) is a multidisciplinary arts group whose artists live and work in Skid Row. At MOCA’s and Judith F. Baca’s invitation LAPD has focused this evening to weigh in on the City’s forthcoming new community plan for downtown.
Skid Row Now & 2040 is a coalition of Skid Row grassroots groups and residents, including LAPD, that has been in dialogue with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning, the City’s Planning Commissioners. and City Council for the past five years, as the City has been developing its new zoning and downtown community plan, “DTLA 2040 Plan,” that will go to City Council for approval in the near future. The Skid Row Now & 2040 coalition was formed to ensure that the concerns and vision of current Skid Row residents are incorporated into the City’s plan. While many of Skid Row Now & 2040’s concerns, articulated by Skid Row residents and workers, have been incorporated into the DTLA 2040 Plan, more still need the City’s attention. The unique history of Skid Row, which includes previous planning decisions that saved the low-income housing in the neighborhood and prevented displacement, remains as important today, as the City grapples with creating housing and neighborhoods for people currently unhoused.
Working with the Skid Row Now & 2040 coalition, University of California, Riverside ProfessorDr. Catherine Gudis, Scholar in Residence at Los Angeles Poverty Department’s Skid Row History Museum & Archive, has just released a paper, Containment and Community: The History of Skid Row and Its Role in the Downtown Community Plan, that articulates this neighborhood history and the reasoning behind Skid Row Now & 2040’s vision for Skid Row’s future.
Dr. Gudis will be joined by Skid Row Now & 2040 coalition members, Coach Ron Crockett of Skid Row Brigade, Charles Porter, United Coalition East Prevention Project, and John Malpede, Los Angeles Poverty Department. Together they will unpack the history of Skid Row and detail the coalition’s work and goals.
Judith F. Baca conceived of World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear as “an arena for dialogue” for the greatest challenges we face and the solutions we imagine when we think and act collectively. Judith F. Baca: World Wall Public Programming looks to embody these ideals of activism and imagination. The series of free programs, which takes place within the space of the exhibition itself, highlights the intersection of environmental and social justice across many disciplines and draws attention to activists, writers, organizers, and artists working to instigate real change within the city.
Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs is organized by Alex Sloane, Associate Curator, with Amelia Charter, Producer of Performance and Programs and Brian Dang, Programming Coordinator.
Wonmi’s WAREHOUSE Programs is founded by Wonmi & Kihong Kwon and Family.
Judith F. Baca: World Wall is organized by Anna Katz, Curator, with Anastasia Kahn, Curatorial Assistant, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Admission to Judith F. Baca: World Wall is free courtesy of Carolyn Clark Powers.