11th annual Festival For All Skid Row Artists
Saturday October 17, 2020 – 4:30 -7:00PM

Due to the pandemic, this year’s festival will take a hybrid form:
streaming live on FaceBook and YouTube
and in person (limited attendance – masks mandatory) with physically distancing in Gladys park.

* MC Chella Coleman will introduce the videos Skid Row artists have submitted and interview artists via live video.
TUNE IN live on
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/lapovertydepartment/live/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/LAPOVERTYDEPARTMENT –> direct link: https://t.ly/IHI3

* At STUDIO 526 several artists will paint a collaborative PAINTING
and ask for your input during the live stream.

* The entire live-stream will be projected on a big screen in Gladys Park
(corner of 6th Street and Gladys Avenue)
MC Charles Porter will give updates from the park with some live performances –> into the live-stream

The Department of Rec and Parks has limited access to Gladys Park, the usual site of the Festival, to 50 people.

Festival for All Skid Row Artists is produced by Los Angeles Poverty Department with partners United Coalition East Prevention Project (UCEPP), Studio 526 (of The People Concern) and Urban Voices Project.  The festival is made possible with the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, The Kindle Project, and the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Los Angeles Poverty Department celebrates and preserves the rich artistic heritage of Skid Row and beginning with the first Festival in 2009 has generated a registry of Skid Row artists, which now numbers more than 900.

The Festival for All Skid Row Artists is a festival of music, theater, spoken word performances and visual art with plenty of music, showcasing the diverse range of talents among Skid Row residents.  Usually taking place in Gladys Park (corner of 6th Street and Gladys Avenue), the festival has become one of the most anticipated grassroots cultural events in Skid Row where typically over 100 Skid Row Artists perform and display their artwork to enthusiastic audiences.  In this extraordinary time, many artists have been preparing their acts and works of art and uploading them to get in the mix of the vibrant Skid Row artistic culture.  LAPD’s Festival for All Skid Row Artists gives audiences a chance to hear what you usually don’t hear about Skid Row: that it is a community rich with talent!

2018 exhibit: State of the ART: Skid Row

2018 | Hyperallergic | Noni Brynjolson | The Hundreds of Artists Living in LA’s Skid Row

In memoriam Linda Harris, performing her favorite song
“I Hope You Dance”.

Downloadable PDF's of the tabloid newsletter of each festival

Calling All Skid Row Artists: submit your videos for the next festival for All Skid Row Artists.

The 11th Festival For All Skid Row Artists is about to happen on the 3rd weekend in October.  And it won’t be possible to get together with so many people in the Skid Row parks, due to COVID_19.  Rec & Parks is only allowing up to 50 people with physical distancing in our parks. So, we had to re-invent the Festival this year and here is the plan: On Saturday, October 17 at 2pm we will bring you the Festival For All Skid Row Artists online and in person.

We are creating a ‘hybrid’ festival in the form of an on-line streaming event on FB and YouTube and a screening of that event for a limited audience in Gladys park and at Studio 526. We will project the live stream accompanied with some live performances on a screen in Gladys park for 50 physically distanced people.  And artists at Studio 526 will work on a collaborative painting, as they do each year, and give us updates during the webinar.

And we need your in-put!
We want to showcase your music / performance / poetry / spoken word / art / creations!!
If you want to participate, please send us a 2 – 3 min. video that showcases your work.
It can be a video of you singing a song or playing music, reading a poem, performing a short monologue or scene or dance.  Or you can film your artwork and talk about it on camera.
The deadline for submitting the video’s is September 26, 2020.

You can send us your video’s, up to 2GB, via wetranfer: https://wetransfer.com/ and email them to: info@lapovertydept.org
The videos have to be free of any rights. If you have any questions you can email us at info@lapovertydept.org 

We have missed seeing you in person and we look forward to seeing your videos!

Making the Case for Skid Row Culture

In 2010, Animating Democracy, a program of Americans for the Arts, released “Making a Case for Skid Row Culture: Findings from a Collaborative Inquiry by the Los Angeles Poverty Department and the Urban Institute”. This study by John Malpede (Los Angeles Poverty Department) and Mario Rosario Jackson (Urban Institute) documents the role of arts and culture in Skid Row. This study found that culture comes from the ground up in Skid Row and is often initiated by residents and resident driven initiatives. This festival is undertaken to recognize these people and initiatives and to stimulate a new way of envisioning and talking about this neighborhood.

open 'Making the Case for Skid Row Culture'

Festival For All Skid Row Artists 2010 - 2019

10th Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2019 festival newsletter

The 10th Festival for all Skid Row Artists, October 26 & 27, 2019. 1-5pm each day in Gladys park

LAPD partners with Studio 526 and United Coalition East Prevention Project (UCEPP) to produce the Festival. This year, the Goethe-Institut is an additional producing partner. The Goethe-Institut is organizing the event series “Worlds of Homelessness”, including discussions, music and film screenings, that begins Tuesday October 22, at LA Poverty Department’s Skid Row History Museum & Archive (with additional sites at Sci-Arc and Navel). The project brings together local and international artists, architects, scholars and others and culminates with the 2 days of the Festival.

“Worlds of Homelessness” will open with music by the LA Playmakers and the Playmakers will close out the Festival on Sunday Afternoon. The LA Playmakers are a local band founded by Joseph Warren and Stan Watson 5yrs ago. These accomplished professional musicians have played with a number of well known jazz and pop music figures. They can play anything, R&B, Hip-Hop, Reggae, Gospel– and they do.  The band members have one thing in common. They all were members of the Praise and Worship Team at Skid Row’s Central City Church of the Nazarene.

Festival attendees are invited to participate in a range of artist facilitated workshops and creativity stations.  Skid Row Now & 2040, will be getting festival-goer input on their community generated plan for a Skid Row future without displacement and with housing for area residents now on the streets.  LAPD’s Festival for All Skid Row Artists gives audiences a chance to hear what you usually don’t hear about Skid Row: that it is a community rich with talent!

2018

9th Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2018 festival newsletter

2017

8th Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2017 festival newsletter

2016

7th Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2016 festival newsletter

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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2015

6th Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2015 festival newsletter

2014

5th Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2014 festival newsletter

2013

4th Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2013 Festival Newsletter

2012

3rd Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2012 Festival Newsletter

2011

2nd Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2011 Festival Newsletter

2010

1st Festival for All Skid Row Artists

click to open 2010 Festival Newsletter
Sign Up as a Skid Row artist
Since 2010, every year in October, Los Angeles Poverty Department produces the Festival for All Skid Row Artists in Gladys Park on Skid Row. LAPD collects information about the artists, documents their work and creates an artists’ registry.
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