WE LIVE! Memories of Resistance
4757 York Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90042
Monday, September 14 at 12:00 AM 12:00 AM
Ends Nov 29, 2020
OXY ARTS and In Plain Sight present WE LIVE! Memories of Resistance, a group exhibition of 14 artists. Participating artists: Felipe Baeza, Margarita Cabrera, Sonya Clark, Beatriz Cortez, In Plain Sight Coalition, Sky Hopinka, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Alberto Lule, Maria Maea, Karen Martinez, Guadalupe Rosales, Dread Scott, Tina Takemoto and Devon Tsuno. Curated by Kyle Stephan and Paulina Lara Over Independence Day weekend, IN PLAIN SIGHT, a national coalition of 80 artists, activists, and organizers, chartered a fleet of planes to type poetic and impactful messages in the sky over ICE detention centers, former government-run incarceration camps, border patrol stations, and immigration courts across the United States. Phrases such as “ABOLITION NOW,” “GOD BROWN AMERICA,” and “NOS VEMOS LIBRES” offered recognition and hope to detained community members while exposing the vast scale of our immigrant detention system that hides “in plain sight” beyond public consciousness. WE LIVE! Memories of Resistance brings together In Plain Sight artists that engage the contemporary political stakes of historical remembrance and collective memory. Employing a diverse range of formally innovative creative practices, their artworks transport viewers through pasts, both real and imagined, to propose a future beyond white supremacy, settler colonialism, and the brutality of policing and punishment. Some artists manipulate materials or mine archival documents to expose the intergenerational reverberations of racism and state violence, while others invite community collaboration to reconstruct histories of resistance and to heal traumatic loss. Still others incorporate ancestral myths, histories, and knowledge to recognize the resilience of oppressed communities and to design speculative spaces of possibility, protection, and belonging. By embracing memory as a living source of reinvention and transformation, these artists scrutinize the underlying conditions of immigrant detention to inspire acts of resistance that challenge our culture of incarceration and racial injustice. Related programming: ALL TIMES IN PST Sept 17 | 6pm Collective Memory and Intergenerational Music Panel Discussion with Cumbiatón Collective DJ Set with DJ Funky and DJ Sizzle Sept 24 | 5pm Another Dimension: Reinventing Public Art and Activism with Emergent Technologies Artist Talk with Nancy Baker Cahill Oct 8 | 11am Healing Intergenerational Trauma with Internal Martial Arts A workshop with Yunuen Rhi Oct 15 | 5pm Narcissister Organ Player (Dir. Narcissister) Filmmaker Introduction and Post-Screening Q&A Oct 21 | 5:30pm Screening of The Infiltrators Post Screening Q&A with Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra Oct 22 | 5pm Artist Talk and Discussion with Dread Scott Oct 28 | TBD Déjenme Gritar (Let Me Scream) Performance by Dorian Wood + La Victoria Nov 4 | 5:30pm Screening of maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore Post-Screening Q&A with Sky Hopinka Nov 12 | 5pm Kenturah Davis in conversation with Felipe Baeza Nov 20 | 7pm Sama: The Divine Listening Room Audio Visual Presentation by Arshia Fatima Haq / Discostan This program is made possible by the Remsen Bird Fund and the Arts and Urban Experience Initiative, which is generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.