Actual Size Los Angeles is an artist-run gallery located in Chinatown, Los Angeles. Through collaboration with established and emerging artists, Actual Size encourages situations that activate the exhibition and engage the public. Opened in April 2010, Actual Size has organized over 40 exhibitions/curatorial interventions and has worked with over 100 artists. Projects curated by Actual Size have been profiled in the L.A Times, Art Forum, Mousse Magazine, and Flash Art International.
Ammunition Theatre Company is an ensemble whose mission is to embolden underrepresented voices through original work and re-imagine classics while reflecting and inspiring the world around us.
Based in Pasadena since 2016, And/Or Gallery specializes in the exhibition of new media, computational, and internet art. The gallery originally operated in Dallas, Texas from 2006 to 2009 and is regarded as one of the first galleries in U.S. to possess the vision and the expertise to exhibit work created with the internet and evolving computer technologies. The gallery is also considered an incubator of talent. Several artists who had early shows at And/Or have since found critical and commercial success, including Cory Arcangel, Petra Cortright, and Ben Jones.
Aperture Duo curates fearless programs that explore new sounds, voices, and techniques through the lens of violin and viola chamber music. Lauded for their “precision and interpretation” along with their “distinct sense of unity and independence” (icareifyoulisten.com), Los Angeles-based Aperture Duo was founded in 2015 by violinist Adrianne Pope and violist Linnea Powell. Equally at home performing old and new music, Aperture Duo actively commissions diverse new works to expand the violin and viola duo repertoire.
ARKHIPOV is a 75-minute chamber opera to be composed by Peter Knell with a libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann. The opera centers on Vasili Arkhipov, whose unsung heroism is all that stood between humanity’s existence and annihilation. The proposed opera tells the story of the events leading up to the fulcrum of the Cuban Missile Crisis—a moment when the future of the globe clearly hung in the balance—and conjures a portrait of the man responsible for defusing the conflict.
Arkhipov was the deputy fleet commander of a fleet of four submarines sent to establish a base in Cuba. In an act of incomprehensible recklessness, the Soviet military equipped each sub with a 15-kiloton nuclear torpedo. If fired, this “special weapon” would ignite a full-fledged nuclear war.
On October 27, a US carrier group forced the sub to make an emergency dive despite dangerously low battery power and debilitating conditions. The fleet of 14 US ships attempted to signal the submarine to surface by dropping “practice” depth charges. This convinced the submarine’s beleaguered captain, Vitali Savitsky, that World War III had broken out. Savitsky ordered the launch of B-59’s nuclear torpedo, an action that required the approval of the ship’s “political officer,” who supported Savitsky. But Savitsky needed the consensus of his deputy fleet commander as well. Archipov refused to fire the torpedo, accepting instead the humiliation of surfacing under the control of the American forces. And so the world continued spinning on its axis.
Art Time Presents creates original endeavors written and produced by female and non-binary artists. Art Time Presents produces new musical theater, plays, sketch, improv, comics, music, visual art, and other mediums that promote marginalized voices. We are an incubator of new work produced by the company and also a home for female and non-binary artists to play and explore with their own projects. We are committed to adding a distinct voice to the artistic landscape in Los Angeles and beyond through dynamic live performance and other forms of art specifically helmed by women and non-binary people. We are a network for collaboration and community building. The company will produce at least one new production per year, as well as host a monthly art collective, Art Time, a community where artists can share and create new work through different themes each month.
The Black Association of Documentary Filmmakers West (BADWest) is a professional organization providing people of African descent working in documentary film, video or other media the opportunity to network professionally, share resources, exchange ideas and meet socially in order to enhance the development, production, promotion and exhibition of documentaries. BADWest also advocates the recognition and professional advancement of Black documentary filmmakers.
Battlegrounds is a city-wide, augmented reality (AR) public art activation in New Orleans, which interprets the word “battleground” as broadly as possible. The project identifies contested public sites (everything from polluted waterways, to confederate statues, to abortion clinics, to gentrified lands, to levees, to prisons, to neglected neighborhoods, to formerly indigenous territories, etc) and geo-locates thematically related work of local artists in the sites of their choosing. All Battlegrounds artworks will be accessible via an LA-based app, 4th Wall, and there will be multiple community engagement projects to increase access even further. All artworks will be experienced on site via the 4th Wall app, but are invisible to the naked eye. It’s a new type of subversive public art which asks no permission, but attempts to prompt thoughtful discourse around the most urgent issues the artwork and sites represent for the larger community they serve. The app is free and open to the public. This is an unapologetically political project, and does no environmental harm in a region of the country which is most vulnerable to climate change.
Founded in 2012, Bed & Breakfast is a curatorial platform and alternative exhibition space that exists within a personal residence, specifically the bedroom. Through hosting exhibitions, installations, performances, happenings and meals, Bed & Breakfast seeks to blur the line between public and private through a commitment to social interaction as a means to nurture community and collective expression, while continuously addressing the core question of how art, architecture, and hospitality can cross paths.
The Betye Saar Catalogue Raisonné Project is an ongoing commitment to documenting the artistic practice of Los Angeles artist Betye Saar. The result of this extensive project will be a scholarly publication documenting the artist’s archives and oeuvre of assemblage, collage, installations, prints and drawings, and will include a comprehensive overview of Saar’s artwork, exhibition history, detailed provenance, and bibliography.
Big City Forum, founded in 2008, is an interdisciplinary, conversation based, curatorial research project that explores the intersection between design-based creative disciplines within the context of public space, the built environment, and social change. BCF produces events in partnership with institutions such as the Skirball Cultural Center, Armory Center for the Arts, Otis Art Institute, Santa Monica Museum of Art, and Woodbury School of Architecture.
BIRDS IN THE MOON is a traveling chamber opera staged in a mobile state of the art, self-contained, shipping container – a theatrical magic moving box. The storyline for BIRDS is loosely based on the eccentric theory by 17th Century scientist Charles Morton, who hypothesized that birds migrate to the moon. According to Morton, birds migrated every year to the moon. Some came back, the rest were lost in space. Morton’s eccentricity serves the libretto with its main theme, the journey of the migrant – using the bird as a metaphor for a person.
Some of the most important sociopolitical issues we will continue to face in this century are no doubt immigration, migration, human trafficking and human rights. Our BIRDS is certainly hinged around these larger topics, but focuses solely on a fantastical story of one migrant’s journey and her children’s fate.
Lights, sound, video and props are all powered by contemporary solar energy battery cells concealed in the bottom of the shipping container, and the work can be staged anywhere a container can be parked, without external power supply. With this ultimate flexibility, BIRDS IN THE MOON can be presented in remote locations, in theatrical spaces, inside or outside, essentially, bringing the theater to the people.
BLKPAPER.com is a site harnessing the voices, expressions and depictions of rage and hope by black artists, photographers and graphic designers. It is a DIY arts x racial justice campaign with work designed for activists, organizers and protesters seeking justice in the streets and in their communities to fight systemic white supremacy, and demand criminal justice reform and police reform. It is organized by artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh and Wyatt Closs of Big Bowl of Ideas.
The Bombshelltoe Arts x Policy Collective gathers policy experts, scientists, community members, and artists together to produce creative projects illuminating the ways nuclear policy impact everyday lives. Conceived in 2013, Bombshelltoe challenges the assumption that foreign policy – particularly those dealing with nuclear arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament – are irrelevant and inaccessible to the common citizenry. By presenting nuclear topics through beautiful and rigorously researched modes of art and storytelling, Bombshelltoe aims to bring seemingly untouchable geopolitical issues to heart, and explore how they intersect with today’s most pressing social issues.
Bone Woman – The Play is a meditation on our vulnerabilities and on our mortality, but also on the life-affirming power of the human heart. The stories in Bone Woman come from folk tales from around the world, but with the universal truth that when stripped of our specific cultural stories, we are all but bone underneath. These are women whose voices we rarely hear – yet need to hear – for they bring us lessons of courage and humanity.
Border Ecologies is a transmedia project that reconsiders the US-Mexico border. The project centers around the “100-mile zone” that rings the United States, allowing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to operate within it, suspending constitutional rights. Focusing on key sites in California that represent this zone, the project will highlight that the border is not a fixed line, but rather, is loosely defined by abstract regulations and varying interpretations of the law.
BoxoPROJECTS is a multi-program arts initiative based in Joshua Tree, California, dedicated to exploring contemporary art at the new frontier. BoxoPROJECTS is interested in the role of art and artists in creating community and in the power of art to shape the destiny of communities. We offer facilitated artist residencies and related programming at BoxoHOUSE in Joshua Tree, as well as exhibitions, installations and performances in various locations. BoxoPROJECTS was founded by Bernard Leibov in 2009.
The residency is distinct in that it invites one artist at a time to carry out a facilitated project that deals with site, community or the environment. The idea is not to suggest content however to promote engagement with place and community such that lasting links are created. Since 2012, twenty-seven residencies have been completed drawing artists from across the US, as well as the UK, South Africa, Australia and Germany. Disciplines include visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, video), performance art, musical composition, and writing. Each residency concludes with an open house for artists to meet the community and share their work. Approximately 250 attend open houses at Boxo annually.
Five exhibitions have also been mounted on site, several artists have been placed into remote exhibitions and Boxo also promotes artists’ work at Art Palm Springs as a cultural partner.
CALLED UP: The Emmett Ashford Story, is a one-hour documentary being produced by the filmmaking team of Raymond Bell and Doug Harris (Five Bellz Entertainment and Doug Harris Media). Bell is an Emmy Award winning producer for CBS Los Angeles with over 30 years of experience in the television industry. Doug Harris is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker who has produced and directed over twenty documentaries dating back to 1999.
The mission of the CALLED UP documentary is to raise public awareness about American sports pioneer Emmett Ashford’s tough journey to becoming Major League Baseball’s (MLB) first African American umpire (1966) during the turbulent Civil Rights Movement. The documentary will serve to educate viewers about how MLB afforded Emmett Ashford the authority to become the first of his race to make key “on field” game decisions as an umpire.
Community Art Machine improves communities with art and hard work through two programs: Machine Community Art Studio and the C.U.T.S Crew. Machine Community Art Studio invites the public to create and view art at the studio in San Pedro seven days a week. The studio also hosts various free events including movie screenings, art contests and workshops. The C.U.T.S Crew (Cleaning up the Streets) specializes in murals and neighborhood cleanups. All of the Crew’s projects are open to the public to participate on a volunteer basis to help get the projects done and learn how these murals are created.
ECHO runs a music enrichment program in South Los Angeles, Pico Union and Pasadena. We seek to close music opportunity gaps for low-income communities and underrepresented groups.
ECHO started as an after-school pop chorus that was featured on NBC news. We provide vocal and piano lessons to youth and prepare them for performances. Our students have performed on the Queen Latifah Show, at the Grammy Museum, on live cable television, at gala events and have opened at the Greek Theater.
We focus on a longterm support of our youth as they develop into adulthood. Lasting mentorship brings communities together, as experienced students work with youth in our inner city program.
Founded in 2014, Epicenter Projects has served as a nomadic residency and exhibition platform for artists working in experimental, time-based and site-responsive modes of production. Working with a roster of regional and international artists, Epicenter Projects has generated an output of innovative works alongside the San Andreas fault, using the existential framework of the shifting fault line and surrounding desert as an external studio of artistic production. Embracing the spirit of Land Art within this era of digital interconnectivity, each project manifests in the form of an online exhibition archived and available to view via epicenterprojects.com. In recent years our programming has expanded beyond a residency platform into producing satellite exhibitions, performances, and lectures. In 2020, Epicenter projects will partner with LAccolade Residence from Paris, France. This new collaboration will bring forth an amplified exchange of international artists and public events housed within a large scale studio residency, gallery, and performance space located in Palm Springs, California and beyond.
Fallen Fruit is an art collaboration originally conceived in 2004 by David Burns, Matias Viegener and Austin Young. Since 2013, David and Austin have continued the collaborative work. Fallen Fruit began in Los Angeles with creating maps of public fruit: the fruit trees growing on or over public property. Fallen Fruit uses cartography and geography as an indexical platform to generate serialized and site-specific works of art that often embrace public participation. The work of Fallen Fruit includes photographic portraits, experimental documentary videos, public art installations, and curatorial projects. Using fruit as a method of reframing the familiar, Fallen Fruit investigates urban space, ideas of neighborhood, and new forms of citizenship.
Music & Arts ReSound (M.A.R.S.) is an interdisciplinary festival that highlights new music, applied arts and independent film, with the target of creating platforms for internationally established musicians and artists to promote their work and open new perspectives on seeing music through cross-artistic pairings. These platforms welcome voices from outside the arts, featuring esteemed voices from Quantum fields that embrace space time and the Art’s place within in.
Friends of the Rialto is committed to the preservation, restoration and potential operation of the Rialto Theatre as a multi-use venue serving South Pasadena and the surrounding area. The group is made up of architectural historians, theater and music industry professionals, and local community members, all sharing the goal of reopening the Rialto Theatre as an arts venue, making it once again a cultural and social hub of South Pasadena.
Good Trouble Makers are artist-agitators based in Los Angeles and working internationally. Inspired by the words of John Lewis, we are committed to making; making art, making room, making change, making good trouble.
Good Trouble Makers do serious work, without taking ourselves too seriously. We are a genre expanding, practice-driven collaborative that is perpetually investigating what anti-racist and queer dance making, devising, teaching, and performing looks like. We celebrate the resiliency, creativity, and audacity of our queer and BIPOC communities; it has insured our survival, and will lead the way to liberation for all.
We replace white, heteropatriarchal systems in favor of cultivating a responsive, multigenerational artist led network called Dance in Progress. We believe intergenerational collaboration is how artists grow, communities thrive, and new opportunities are created. What does anti-racist, queer dance making look like? It’s beautifully messy and constantly evolving; it’s what we work to embody with our creations, classes, and colabs everyday.
HOCKET is one of today’s most exciting chamber music groups. Brought together by their love of chamber music and simple joy of playing together, members Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff are committed to bringing contemporary, two piano and piano four hands music to a wider audience. Sarah Gibson and Thomas Kotcheff are both pianist-composers dedicated to commissioning and performing contemporary music and have been featured performers of University of Southern California Thornton Edge for many years. Together, they have premiered dozens of chamber and solo piano works and have collaborated with the premier new music ensemble eighth blackbird. In 2014, HOCKET made their professional debut alongside Firebird Ensemble as a selected chamber group under Firebird Ensemble’s Outstanding Young Artists Initiative.
HomeFront Rising improves the lives of veterans through the arts, and fosters business, social and creative relationships between veterans and non-veterans. As such, we not only help veterans, but harness their skills for the greater good. Our Veterans Community Theater workshop trains veterans to work as stage managers in Los Angeles theaters. Our Mentors program connects veterans who are pursuing a career in the entertainment/media field with established professionals. Our Arts Therapy workshops tap into creativity to help veterans meet the challenges of everyday life. Our Artist Residencies provide accommodations at no charge to artist-veterans who want to experience the rich culture of New Orleans while creating art or art therapy for the community. We also present public discussions, free concerts for veterans at VA hospitals and veterans’ housing communities, and paid admission concerts for the public with proceeds from ticket sales supporting services for veterans.
homeLA brings dance process to interior space.
homeLA provides a platform for independent dance makers and body-based artists to develop new works in conversation with residents, co-artists, and guests in various neighborhoods throughout the city.
homeLA artists work in a collective mode during a dedicated rehearsal period to form one-of-a-kind performances in response to the architecture and ethos of a home.
Combining site-sensitive dance with salon-style performance, homeLA seeks to contribute to a dialogue about performance, domestic space, and Los Angeles’ particular landscape.
The purpose of The Industry Youth Dance Theatre is to inspire, educate, and support young dancers by performing in an annual, full length contemporary ballet production. We aspire to build and maintain an organization focused on raising funds to produce this pre-professional ballet. Our mission is to provide young dancers ages 5-18 the opportunity and experience of performing on stage. The values and life lessons that the performing arts offer are lost in most schools and we aim to bridge that gap by providing and nurturing a healthy and creative outlet. Values such as teamwork, time management, dedication, confidence, determination, artistry, and commitment to a larger purpose are tantamount to creating a thriving, meaningful life. Participating in dance and performing on stage helps children become healthy, artistic, well rounded adults while developing a lifelong appreciation of the performing arts.
John Williams is a living legend in the field of music today. His influence can be felt throughout chamber, film and concert music. 20 years ago John composed his concerto for trumpet which was originally written for Michael Sachs and the Cleveland orchestra. Unfortunately, this recording was never released and it is the goal through this project to make the definitive recording of this work. John Williams will conduct this recording session, and making this recording here with him and LA’s finest musicians will be historic and a first for this concerto.
JT Lab is a creative partner of the National Park Service. We employ the skills of artists and designers to work closely with NPS in our shared mission of protecting and facilitating access to the national parks and national park resources. JT Lab does this by means of providing creative assistance to park sites, generating and collaborating on special projects with parks, and helping to preserve the service’s modern design history.
Kewa Civic Concerts presents free and low-cost admission concerts for the community and for those who cannot get out to hear concerts. The group is currently presenting subsidized professional music performances in pediatric hospitals and has curated the Free Admission Glendale Noon concerts, which presents twenty-four subsidized concerts a year to the public.
KNOWLEDGES is an artist-organized curatorial initiative into the expanded field. KNOWLEDGES at Mount Wilson Observatory features site-oriented art installations and performances at the historic astronomical observatory June 3 & 4, 2017. The 2017 exhibition is curated by KNOWLEDGES founding director Christina Ondrus, with additional programming curated by John Hogan, Ian James, Gabie Strong, and Brica Wilcox. KNOWLEDGES is a recipient of an inaugural 2016-17 Artist Project Grant from the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts.
The L.A. Zine Fest (LAZF) is, at its core, an opportunity for So-Cal zinesters—makers of self-published magazines— to come together en masse and meet and exchange ideas with people from all over the country. The Fest itself is an annual event organized by a collective of zine-enthusiasts dedicated to promoting zine culture as a means to connect communities in Los Angeles and beyond.
The purpose of the L.A. Art Workers Relief Fund is to raise $500,000 in donations to be distributed equally to 500 workers in arts and cultural industries who are unable to meet their financial obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
LAND AND SEA is a small press based in Oakland California run by Maria Otero and Chris Duncan. LAND AND SEA began during the final days of 2009 and have consistently been publishing small editions of books and records by artists from the bay area and beyond. Under the same moniker, Chris and Maria organize gatherings that celebrate the artists they work with as well as the communities they are a part of. As an extension of our printed objects and editions, we opened the doors of our storefront studio in Oakland to host sound and art events at the beginning of 2015. Since we have opened our space our mission has been to provide an inclusive space which works outside of institutional red tape and to maintain a physical platform that facilitates intimate, often non-commercial performances and gatherings. As we move forward, our goal is continue our open and vast programming with a more stable financial reality.
Landmarks of Art Initiative is dedicated to the creation of place-based site-specific works, exhibitions, and education. Specifically, the initial funds will go towards creating a large scale art project called “The Compass” in the deserts east of San Diego County. Land will be secured for this project and 8 full scale boats will be placed in the desert landscape forming a landlocked compass. Conceptually it addresses the idea of place, environment, and immigration. This artwork will serve as a aesthetic research site for arid landscapes to be visited by students and organizations. After the initial stages of creating the artwork, the mission of the initiative will be to promote artistic practices and experiences on the land and help foster emerging artist to create place based work.
Light on Shadow is developing “Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile”, a cinematic and musical portrait of one of the twentieth century’s iconic musicians and composers. Through Schnabel’s music (performed at a major commemorative concert in Berlin by pianist Markus Pawlik, singer Dietrich Henschel, and the Szymanowski String Quartet) and letters (read by the eminent actor Udo Samel), the film reveals an essential artist displaced by the catastrophe of the two World Wars and the Holocaust and inspired by the possibilities of modernism. The film is directed by Matthew Mishory and will premiere in fall 2017.
New plays aren’t scary. Little Candle creates new, intelligent, story-centered theatre for both the hesitant and enthusiastic audience member.
Lollieworks under the direction of Lindsey Lollie is a platform for the development of contemporary dance works, collaboration and teaching. The main project for 2020 includes the Los Angeles premier of Wind Down, an evening length dance piece in its second year in process. Wind Down is a piece that integrates wind, bodies and live sound, reflecting the energetic journey of overwhelm, resistance and surrender between the body and its co-existing environment. As giant electric fans accumulate in the space, an ensemble of wind dancers create a shape shifting landscape, moving in and out of the airstream. The development of this work will coincide with dance classes and opportunities for the community to see the rehearsal process as the work is being finished. Excerpts of Wind Down have been shown at various venues in its earliest stages, including Redcat Studio and LA Dance Festival. Parallel to the development of this work is Lollie’s outreach as a teacher. Making and teaching dance has always been a creative endeavor as well as a healing practice for Lollie. She will pursue grants and residencies that will allow for the development of her choreography alongside her dance and yoga teaching. Lollie currently teaches for Renaissance Arts Academy, The National Health Foundation and szalt dance co. Lollieworks aims to receive support for herself and her collaborators through fundraising, grants, residencies and subsidized rehearsal space. This project is also supported by szalt dance co, led by artistic director Stephanie Zaletel in Los Angeles.
The Long Beach Youth Chorus was founded with the goal of becoming the premiere children/youth chorus in Long Beach, with performing opportunities with other L.B. organizations such as the Long Beach Symphony, Long Beach Chorale and Long Beach Camerata. For the 2018-19 season, the chorus is open to singers in grades 6-12. Tuition for the season is only $100 for the entire season.
Los Angeles Artist Census addresses the lack of knowledge of the life of working artists in Los Angeles. Part research project, part public art—this project involves collecting basic financial data on LA-based artists to gain a better understanding of need versus resources-available to artists in the city.
Modeled after the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, which collects data on people in the US to determine how federal and state funds are distributed each year, the LA Artist Census will provide much needed statistical information on the quality of life of artists living in Los Angeles. The data will include information like total debt, debt from student loans, monthly income and expenses, and employment status.
Lot 2001 is a short-term artist retreat located in an industrial neighborhood on the Eastside of Los Angeles. Inspired by artist friends who can no longer afford to live in LA, Lot 2001 provides cost–free temporary accommodations for visual artists, writers and performers who have an urgent need. Curated by multi-disciplinary artist Margie Schnibbe, Lot 2001 seeks to provide multiple levels of support for visual artists, writers and performers with limited financial means.
The Love House originated from artist Alexandra Grant’s collaborative proposal to transform the Johnson family home on E. 107th Street in Watts, California, into a living artwork that blends public and private spaces across the street from the Watts Towers monument. Originally created under the invitation of Watts House Project in 2008, the Love House is now ready to be completed as an independent project. The Love House team includes Moneik Johnson and her children as well as architect Jason Robinson, designers Arktura, Project Manager, Trinidad Ruiz, and Alexandra Darraby of Art Law Firm. Together, the team has created a masterful renovation plan that adds value to both the public space as well as interior family life.
MAIDEN LA is a radically inclusive and expansive county-wide survey of art happenings that considers Los Angeles as a platform for generative discourse and creative exchange. An egalitarian program aimed at dissolving hierarchies, MAIDEN LA accepts all projects submitted and gives participating artists total autonomy in the presentation of their work. By being 100% inclusive, the program provides its audience a unique opportunity to consider all participants – regardless of race, gender expression, religious beliefs, age, economic status, or education – on the same plane.
MILLER || PHELPS is the guitar and percussion duo of Alexander Elliott Miller and Benjamin Phelps. Their mission is to promote the creation of new music for this ensemble through commissioning composers, sound artists and other music creators, and the performance and recording of these works.
The Mojave Project is an experimental transmedia documentary by Kim Stringfellow exploring the physical, geological and cultural landscape of the Mojave Desert. The Mojave Project reconsiders and establishes multiple ways in which to interpret this unique and complex landscape, through association and connection of seemingly unrelated sites, themes, and subjects thus creating a speculative and immersive experience for its audience.
Monte Vista Projects is an artist-run space based in Highland Park. Through exhibitions, lectures, events and performances, MVP has served as a space to share ideas and cultivate exhibitions articulated in experiments and play. We also encourage forms which break entirely from these existent threads.
The Moving Mountain is a performance-based project created by artist Rachel Mason for fiction, science, and autobiographical stories. This interdisciplinary series of programming aims to make complex scientific ideas relatable through personal stories and evocative staging with engaging production design integrating dance, music, costume and storytelling.
Mount Lowe Chamber Players connects professional musicians residing in Altadena and surrounding areas with the community of Altadena by presenting free public chamber music concerts at the Altadena Public Library and other local venues, and by including students from the local public schools as performers on selected programs.
My Golem is a multi-faceted art project created by Los Angeles-based visual artist Julie Weitz. The project centers on her embodiment and portrayal of a futuristic folkloric humanoid, named My Golem. The character was created in 2017 for a series of Instagram videos that responded to rising antisemitism; since that time, the project evolved through a series of commissioned works. In partnership with curators, galleries, critics, rabbis, Jewish scholars and religious congregations, My Golem has grown to include live performance, film and video content, and collaborative educational initiatives. Though each new initiative is distinct from the last, what has remained consistent is Weitz and her Golem’s confrontation of contemporary cultural issues, through the fantastical lens of a Jewish mythological figure.
Now Be Here amplifies, connects and establishes a support network of artists and allies of artists. While there is a wealth of resources available for artists in the LA region, the decentralized nature of the metropolis creates isolated creative communities in independent, separate social/industry spaces. In efforts to address this problem, the Initiative seeks to connect these disparate support networks and artists communities.
Image Credit: Now Be Here #1, LA (2016), photo by Isabel Avila and Carrie Yurry, Courtesy Kim Schoenstadt and Hauser & Wirth
Science is a creative—even artistic—process. The Palomar Observatory Book is about the pioneering men and women who almost single-handedly laid the foundations of modern astrophysics and jump-started the rise of world-class science and technology in southern California. Yet, the bulk of those exquisite discoveries are buried in technical journals. The Project’s intent is multifold: to make the discoveries more accessible to the public, to inspire and educate the public about the scientific process, and to celebrate and chronicle three-quarters of a century’s worth of ground-breaking scientific achievements.
Pasadena Opera is committed to revolutionizing the presentation and perception of opera. They provide theatre experiences that are contemporary and relevant to all members of the community while maintaining standards of the highest artistic excellence. Pasadena Opera strives to entertain and delight their audiences in a comfortable, accessible environment.
PasadenaPhotographyArts is dedicated to the promotion of photographic arts in the Pasadena environs; encouraging and supporting established and emerging fine art, documentary and conceptual photographers through promotion, exhibitions, publications and educational programs.
Pieces of Eight was formed by singers who love both chamber music and opera. When people think of singers, they often think of someone singing by themselves, or perhaps by themselves with “backup singers”, or in a large chorus. But for those with a taste for works such as string quartets and piano trios, there is a small and little-known yet pithy repertoire involving singers which contains the same sorts of delights. Likewise, one-act operas are a relatively neglected corner of the operatic world. The small cast numbers, and concentrated drama, of such works struck us as a fitting complement to vocal chamber music pieces. We have made it our mission to present these little-known gems to our audiences in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Portraits of the Fallen Memorial has a mission to tell the story of those who serve our country, with the painting of the California Fallen from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Each soldier is matched with a professional artist, who creates a portrait in the medium of his or her choice. The long-range vision is to develop a traveling exhibition that will address issues of patriotism and tell the stories of these American heroes.
Public Matters is a Los Angeles-based, award-winning social enterprise. We design and implement long-term, place-based, socially engaged art, media, education, and civic engagement projects that advance social change. Our team—made up of artists, educators, media professionals, cultural planners, and Fellows—works on projects across disciplinary boundaries to build social, creative, economic, and civic capital in communities. Public Matters connects people to their neighborhoods; cultivates shared ownership of place; builds capacity to shape communities.
QiPO is a team of international curators, artists and cultural producers, who have joined forces to realize exhibitions, events and various arts related projects around the world with the purpose of promoting dialogue and social engagement.
Queer Artist Dinner (QAD) was created in 2017 to bring together Los Angeles-based LGBTQ artists for a meal and conversation. The evening’s objective was simple, to create a space for queer artists to meet as peers outside of an exhibition opening and without the presence of curators, gallerists, and collectors. Situated within an intergenerational and diverse room of over 100 artists, the dinner became an informal context for individuals to meet new friends, foster meaningful connections, and make plans for the future.
Queerfest is a rich map of published addresses of active LGBTQ bars, nightclubs, organizations, etc.in Los Angeles from 1871 – today.
RARARA is the umbrella project for Edgar Arceneaux’s live performance works.
Until, Until, Until… investigates the infamous 1981 performance of Broadway legend Ben Vereen, televised nationally as part of Ronal Reagan’s inaugural celebration.
Boney Manilli, where Disco meets Rasputin meets Milli Vanilli, in a drug induced historical mash-up, inspired by pop stars and mystical icons whose rise and fall have become synonymous with infamy. The play explores how dangerous Entertainment has become, when feelings are more trustworthy than facts — the conditions of our current political reality.
Real93543 is a creative placemaking project for the Southeast Antelope Valley, designed to engage residents and artists in a collaborative, arts-based process of strengthening local ownership and social connection. An homage to the 93543-zip code, the project focuses on highlighting community specific narratives through documentary media, art education programs and public art.
Scholarship Audition Performance Preparatory Academy (SAPPA) is a music and arts preparatory program for youngsters in under-served communities. SAPPA delivers a musical experience through workshops, clinics and mentoring and instructional programs. SAPPA works to increase community awareness and student participation in existing programs, provide support systems for families, and assist students in personal development. Their instrument loan project makes instruments available to students and schools in need.
Selah Gospel Choir (SGC) was founded as a haven for people who want to sing high-quality gospel music but are either unable to find it in their own church/spiritual center or do not identify with being in a church at all. We are not directly connected to any religious organization yet the religious/spiritual makeup of our singers is broad and inclusive. Our singers are diverse across the identities of race, age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and ability. We expect that all who enter our community are welcomed and shown respect AND welcome and show respect to others, inclusive of our many differences.
Circling around central values such as love, intersectionality and community, SGC demonstrates these values as they sing for a purpose greater than themselves. This vibrant and challenging ensemble strives to remain authentic to the traditional and contemporary forms of gospel music.
At its first concert, SGC had 11 members. Today, each concert performance has close to 75 members and its audience has heard the voices of nearly 200 people in its 19 concert seasons. Circling around central values such as love, diversity and community, SGC demonstrates these values as they sing for a purpose greater than themselves.
This vibrant and challenging ensemble strives to remain authentic to the traditional and contemporary forms of gospel music.
The Shed Research Institute is a multidisciplinary art and design studio committed to researching and intervening in the forces that define place, landscape, and site, through independent and collaborative research, community-based projects, and site-specific projects.
SIPAUSR is the Society of Interesting People for the Advancement of Unique Social Recreation, a collective for the experimental practice of recreational arts. SIPAUSR is prototyping SAUSR, the Space for the Advancement of Unique Social Recreation. This future art space is for the formation and experimentation of unique social recreation concepts.
Soap Ear is a Los Angeles-based publication that serves the city’s musical extremities — the critics, outsiders, experimenters, dreamers, academics, sound artists, and concrete poets who will also be regular contributors to this platform. Published four times a year, Soap Ear features and critiques musical objects (pieces, shows, or installations) that touch or disrupt our editors’ creative vision. Covering shows, installations, and new music releases, Soap Ear also publishes mixtapes, artist interviews, essays, scores, poetry, and anything else that fits. While honing in on Los Angeles and Southern California venues and record labels, Soap Ear honors the spirit of our globalized era, surveying musicians from New York, Tokyo, and elsewhere. Still, our core mission will be to explore musical activity and ideas that fuel Los Angeles proper and fan out from here to the rest of the world.
The Southland Institute is an unaccredited two-year postgraduate workshop and evolving public online repository of educational resources, built around a central curricular helix consisting of the tools, processes, histories, and discourses of typography and critical art-making. It is also intended to be a forum for inquiry into the processes, potentials, and complications of education and its attendant structures and systems.
Using multimedia and the written word, Stage Raw is a digital journal dedicated to discovering, discussing and honoring L.A.-based arts and culture. Using and expanding on a core of current and former L.A. Weekly contributors, Stage Raw initially is focusing on theater, but soon will broaden its coverage to include dance, music and the visual arts. The site offers complimentary searchable event listings, reviews, features, profiles, humor and essays.
In our culture, most of the stories arriving from the airwaves are created to sell products. Stage Raw will focus on the many voices and visions otherwise muted by this theology of marketing: We stand behind the actor on the unadorned stage; the director forging undiscovered meanings in a classic; the dramatist, painter, comedian and composer who may not have an agent, but who have something authentic to say. Stage Raw is here to provoke, and to serve artists and their audiences in the larger struggle to discern the purpose of our lives, and the meaning of our city.
Tea & Verse Poetry Salon exists to increase the appreciation, understanding, accessibility, and support of poetry within communities. We believe that poetry can serve as a source of personal inspiration, be a viewfinder to gain an empathetic perspective into common human experiences, and act as a listening room resonating truths, concerns and hopes for humanity and the state of the world. We endeavor to provide workshops to engage readers’ interest in poetry; curate literary and performance events for bourgeoning and seasoned writers and interdisciplinary artists; host support and resource meetings for writers and artists; and organize patronage opportunities for residents, businesses and other entities to support the work of writers and artists.
TeenTix LA is a youth development initiative that focuses on arts engagement. TeenTix’s mission is to empower young people to take an active role in shaping their arts community as audience members, critics, influencers, advocates, patrons, and leaders. TeenTix exists to break down barriers that prevent teens from accessing art in our community. TeenTix LA is modeled after a successful initiative in Seattle; since 2004, 65,000 teens from all over the world have signed up for a TeenTix Seattle Pass.
An Exhibition Organized by Jay Belloli
Dr. Randii R. Wessen, JPL, Science Advisor
Since the dawn of the space age in 1958, there has been a revolution in our understanding of our planet because of what we have learned from space. Beginning with early weather satellites and NASA’s human space program, we have come to visually understand the Earth as a whole system, not as individual nations or geographical regions. This new vantage point has helped us identify characteristics, changes and problems in the atmosphere, the land, and the oceans, and at times make adjustments needed to meet challenges.
The Earth from Space exhibition will bring together historic photographs of our planet, and will present images to investigate the reality of climate change. A total of 100 photographs and charts will be included, as well as videos. An extensive catalogue will be published, with the photographs and visual materials in the show as well as interviews with scientists who are experts in the study of the atmosphere, land masses, and oceans.
The Moveable Theatre Company presents quality theatrical performances in locations that are not necessarily theaters and uses the perfrmances to raise funds for worthy charitable causes.
The Ngoma Sema (drum talk) project, is committed to providing quality training in African music and an in depth knowledge in cultural affairs; a perfect opportunity for participants to have a hands on experience into the foundational principles and structures of African folk rhythm,song and traditional cultural symbolism. Participants will experience that; African drumming,song and dance, transcends sheer entertainment and can be used as a tool for communication; it provides us a mirror for self – reflection, a window for self – expression, a means for personal enhancement and enjoyment.
The Nonsemble is a collective of creatives that curate live events, promote and present established and emerging talent from across the country and around the globe. Our vision is an international community, brought together by America’s native musical tongue – Jazz Music and all her relatives – as found, filtered and reflected by the new and next generations of Jazz throughout the world. Our mission is to work as the ambassadors – creating, building and sustaining a community of Artists and Audience as a multi-cultural, gender-balanced and all-inclusive Ambassadorship for Jazz and all related Music, Arts, Culture and Lifestyle.
Unconfirmed Makeshift Museum [UMM] is a flexible project space with a playful utopian sensibility, conceived as a cultural intervention in suburban Irvine, CA. UMM’s mission is to provide a shifting, creative platform for contemporary art through exhibitions and free public events for the community. Inspired by the generative history of artist collectives and alternative spaces, UMM is artist and community-centered, bringing together hybrid conceptual and poetic strategies, abstraction and politics. UMM is sponsored and directed by Abstraction at Work, an entity created by artist Mariángeles Soto-Díaz.
Vicente Chamber Orchestra is a quality chamber orchestra, largely comprised of volunteer musicians who are passionate about music, excited about performing, interested in playing in a chamber orchestra, and committed to making great music that will excite local audiences.
VOLUME is a collective of creative individuals dedicated to presenting time-based work by emerging and established artists engaged in sound based practices, including performance, experimental music, field recording, voice, radio, movement, and technology. Through performances, concerts, exhibitions, screenings, and workshops, VOLUME aims at fostering a critical understanding of politics and aesthetics in relation to sound and sound based practices. As a curating body, VOLUME intends to cultivate social and public activities, contributing to the contemporary sonic arts scene of Los Angeles.
WasteLAnd presents music which explores the extremities of instrumental and vocal performance techniques and both reconsiders and expands conventional modes of musical expression while searching for something new. The project name is a hat-tip to outsider misconceptions that Los Angeles’s contemporary/experimental music scene lacks artistic invention, quality, and community. WasteLAnd’s concerts will shine a spotlight on chamber music composed in the last decade performed by world-class musicians who live and work in Southern California.
Wild Art Group is a project based art and performance company dedicated to supporting the development and creation of new art works by Allison M Keating. Wild Art Group creates artistic projects that are relevant to NOW, charging people to examine and question our current contemporary moment, to provoke community engaged discussion and instigate change in our society. Our art works herald unfettered self expression and are daring, ambitious, visually striking, exciting and never without a sense of danger. We work to ensure the experimental arts (works of art in which the outcomes are unknown) has a thriving future in America by fueling a culture of collaboration, resource sharing, support and sustainability, both economic and environmental.
Established in 2017, X Artists’ Books is a small publisher of thoughtful, high-quality, artist-centered books that fit within and between genres. Our books are works of art; portals to imagined worlds; treasured companions; the fabric of a community. We are based in Los Angeles with a global reach and deep commitment to diversity and collaboration.