Alt Ped/Rad Ped Groups in LA

02.28.2016

This research is very much in-progress. If your group, or a group you know, is missing, please help us out by editing this document (for authors), or writing the name down in the comments. Thank you!

(Descriptions are primarily extracted from texts authored by the group organizers themselves.)

1. Analog Dissident
From Temporary Art Review.com: Jimena Sarno: “analog dissident is a non-hierarchical discussion group for artists and curators, featuring two guest artists in an informal, open studio visit. Guest artists are encouraged to bring work in progress or work that is being completed for a specific exhibition. The gathering, promoted mostly through local artist networks and word-of-mouth happens monthly at Jimena Sarno’s studio and everyone is encouraged to participate in the dialog.” 

2. Armory Center for the Arts: www.armoryarts.org/
“…at the forefront of art education in southern California for more than 60 years. It originated as the education department of the Pasadena Art Museum in 1947. Classes were led by artists whose teaching concepts grew out of the museum's exhibitions of modern art…By 2007, the number of participants and viewers in Armory programs and exhibitions exceeded 100,000 people. Today, we maintain our commitment to providing accessible public spaces for the exhibition of contemporary art and to providing meaningful experiences in art education.”

3. Arts for LA/Activate: www.artsforla.org/activate
Mission: “foster a healthy environment in which arts and culture may thrive and be accessible to all in Los Angeles County. Our mission statement is supported by our vision and statement of values. Arts for LA envisions the greater Los Angeles region as one in which government, education, business and residents value, support and fully integrate the arts—in all their diversity—into the fabric of civic life.”

4. Art Division: http://artdivision.org/
(501)(c)3 founded in 2010 by artist Dan McCleary to serve young adults in the Rampart District. A “professional training program for underserved young adults who show genuine commitment and passion for the visual arts…Art Division distinguishes itself by providing in-depth services to young adults aged 18-25 in the Rampart District…We believe that focused instruction, individualized tutoring and personal support gives students the tools they need to pursue higher education, achieve self-sufficiency and obtain careers in the arts and related fields.”

5. Art+Practice: http://artandpractice.org/
Private operating foundation based at a nearly 20,000 square-foot Leimert Park campus. Encourages education and culture by providing life-skills training for foster youth in the 90008 ZIP code as well as free, museum-curated art exhibitions and moderated art lectures to the community of Leimert Park. Founded by artist Mark Bradford, philanthropist and collector Eileen Harris Norton, and social activist Allan DiCastro. Partners: Hammer Museum, which curates exhibitions and public programs; The RightWay Foundation, which delivers mental health services and job training to foster youth. Also runs AIR program for LA-based artists.

“at land’s edge is an experimental platform for visual research. We facilitate creative connections across people, materials, and discourses. Our research, events, production, publications, and international residencies aim to decenter the institutional structures that define education and cultural production. Based in Los Angeles, our programs are in tune with the dynamic worlds that exist in this diverse metropolis. We bring cultural producers together to undiscipline ways of knowing and press the limits of creative praxis.”

7. The Block of Mural Painters & The John Reed Club
John Reed Clubs: “an American federation of local organizations targeted towards Marxist writers, artists, and intellectuals, named after the American journalist and activist John Reed. Established in the fall of 1929, the John Reed Clubs were a mass organization of the Communist Party USA which sought to expand its influence among radical and liberal intellectuals. The organization was terminated in 1935.” [Wikipedia]. 

The Block of Mural Painters was formed by young artists (including Philip Guston) who had assisted Siqueiros with his Olvera Street mural “American Tropical” in 1932. In December 1932 the Hollywood John Reed Club sponsored an exhibition at the California Art Club’s Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park. The Block of Mural Painters made portable anti-racist murals depicting the Scottsboro Boys. The LAPD Red squad confiscated, shot at, and destroyed the paintings the night before the exhibition was due to open. 

8. The Catalyst Series: http://losfelizarts.org/author/eserrano/
“Organized and hosted by Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts (LFCSA), seeks to bring together organizations and individuals who wish to take part in shaping the educational landscape with respect to ARTS INTEGRATION, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, and DEMOCRATIC PEDAGOGY. This year we will be hosting two Catalyst Educator Days and one Catalyst Conference in the Spring. The Catalyst Educator Day is a 3-hour event that will give participants an opportunity to see Arts Integration in action, and engage in dialogue with other educators to discuss approaches, strategies, and curriculum seeds that highlight interdisciplinary standards-based learning in and through the arts.The Catalyst conference is a day-long event with a program that will include workshops, presentations, roundtables and exhibitions focused on constructivist learning, inquiry and the arts. We are interested in your session proposals.”

Founded and is run by artist and Homeboy Industry Director of Substance Abuse Services, Fabian Debora…Created as a tool for re-entry and diversion for formerly incarcerated ex-gang members and at-risk youth, the Academy creates a free, accessible, and safe space for intergenerational learning…Students are taught a range of fine arts, including painting on canvas, graffiti, murals, conceptual art, sketching, digital, photography, and video. The studio space for the Academy is located at LPAN Studios in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles.”
An activity of, Latino Producers Action Network (LPAN). A 501c-3 founded October 2009, “dedicated to the development, production, promotion, preservation and distribution of multicultural theatre, art, music, and film in order to create cultural awareness and alleviate racial tension and discrimination in the community.” 

10. DIY PhD/Post-National Dept. of Transcultural Youth: https://thepdty.wordpress.com/d-i-y-phd/
The Postnational Department of Transcultural Youth is a degree-granting entity of the DIY PhD. Sarah Dougherty and David Whitaker began the DIY PhD in Los Angeles during the Fall of 2014. The DIY PhD is a higher education program for interdisciplinary scholarship while the candidate integrates their learning into a living practice through yearly projects.The whole world and one’s experiences of her become the University. The DIY PhD candidate’s activities – intuited, intentional, spontaneous and structured- are constantly and consistently folded into the Project. This program is grounded in auto-ethnography. The creator of the program is also the student. The student is also facilitator, editor and co-professor for his or her cohort.

11. East Los Streetscapers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Los_Streetscapers
A muralist art collective based in East LA founded in 1977 by David Botello and Wayne Healy 1977. Its members have executed over twenty murals and large-scale public artworks, primarily in LA area. In founded Los Dos Streetscapers. Other artists, include George Yepes, Rudy Calderon, Fabien Debora.

12. Echo Park Film Center: www.echoparkfilmcenter.org/
“With a special focus on “at risk” youth, EPFC programs and services use cinema as catalyst to inspire, educate, and empower communities…A non-profit media arts organization committed to providing equal and affordable community access to film/video resources via: 
-a neighborhood microcinema space
-free and nominal cost education programs 
-a comprehensive film equipment and service retail department 
-an eco-friendly mobile cinema & film school
-local and international artist residencies.”

13. La Escuela Racionalista, PLM HQ, & International Workers House, 809 Yale St., Chinatown
The International Workers Home…became the PLM headquarters. At the school, instructors lectured party members’ daughters against the “bonds of female slavery” and its sons against the “fetters of imperialist wars.” “The school itself mirrored the principles developed by the Catalan anarchist Franciso Ferrer Guardia, who argued that education was the key to emancipation of the working class…Upon hearing about the group who had taken over the home, the Los Angeles Times…sensationalized in March of 1913 that “Mexican Revolutionists Establish Armed Camp in Los Angeles.” The armed camp, however, was nothing more than a spacious house where workers and their children could seek free lodging, cultural activities, and lectures. An application submitted to the Department of Buildings in March 1914 shows that the house was subdivided into two-and three- room apartments to accommodate the growing number of inhabitants.”

14. Flor y Canto (2001-2005) and the Los Angeles Free University (2004)
Flor y Canto Centro Comunitario: Exhibition, education, bookstore, and social space: 3706 N.Figueroa Ave. Opened August 11, 2001, closed September 16, 2005.

“A not-for-profit community center & radical bookstore run entirely by volunteers. We intend to create a social space that promotes the self-development & self-sufficiency of our diverse, multi-ethnic community of North East L.A. We provide access to resources, services, cultural and educational activities that enhance our social lives. We want to encourage a dialogue between residents that aims for the sharing of ideas and skills that will propel the people of L.A. towards a more cooperative, non-coercive, and self-sufficient future.”

15. The Free University of Los Angeles, appears to be a project of Flor y Canto volunteers, has a bare bones web presence. Mostly “under construction,” but with sessions listed from January 2004 – July 2004, including “Intro to Marx historical materialism,” “Anti-Colonialism Resistance in Puerto Rico,” and “Demanding the Impossible: an introduction to the Situationist International (S.I.).” (Also, some lively notes regarding a 7.24.2004 discussion about “one of the more common and least discussed mechanisms of power…the disciplinary power of normalization.”) Meetings were held at Flor y Canto. 

16. IWW Halls: 781 South San Pedro St., 219 1/2 E. 4th St.
“The nerve centers of this IWW counterculture were the hundreds of Wobbly Halls all over the U.S. and Canada. Meeting-place, reading room, and hangout–a place to relax without having to eat, drink, or buy anything–every IWW hall was a cultural center in the best sense: the union’s revolutionary alternative to such conservative institutions as church, tavern, gambling parlor, race-track, and men’s club. In the wobbly Halls Fellow Workers planned new organizing drives and walkouts; wrote poems, songs, leaflets, pamphlets and articles for the Industrial Worker; talked about ideas, books, poetry, history, and problems of the day; and almost every evening, enjoyed good entertainment: music, plays, poetry readings, songfests, and dancing.” (Franklin Rosemont: Joe Hill, 2003)

17. LACE (Liberation Arts and Community Engagement) Center: http://lacecenter.tumblr.com 
“…a working collaborative and community resource for community-based arts and movement-building…a hub that collaborates with community-based grass roots organizations towards the creation of sustainable Liberation Arts and Community Engagement projects in the Los Angeles area…promotes cooperation and coalition-building between political, activist, and community-based organizations through the creation of collective community arts towards the aim of liberation, education, healing, and social/political change.”

18. The LAMP Arts Program: http://m.lampcommunity.org
“An arts studio and creativity center for the Skid Row neighborhood.” Founded in 1999. “Located at the Lamp Village the organization’s main shelter facility in the heart of downtown L.A.’s Skid Row, the Arts Program offers people who are homeless, living in extreme poverty or with mental illness a safe and nurturing place for creative self-expression. The program also encourages long-term participation as artists develop their individual voices, display the artwork, inspire each other, build a healthy community together and make creativity a continuous, restorative part of their lives.” “The Arts Program has built on grass-roots community members’ engagement, guest artists and volunteers to become an important resource and outlet for creativity. The Lamp Arts Program relies on private financial and art supplies donations and volunteers to keep its doors open.” 527 Crocker St, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

19. MKE<->LAX’s, & Market Lab at the Bunny House: www.mke-lax.org/
“Investigates cultural exchange between two American regions, with Milwaukee and Los Angeles as epicenters, through residencies and public programs. The goal is to expand the discussion about cultural exchange across the boundaries that typically isolate ideas regionally. MKE<->LAX’s base intent is to move between regions to ask questions about the influence location, size, market, cultural values and other regional factors have on production of the arts and cultural identity. 
With the direction of Sara Daleiden, the initiative creates conditions for social interactions in developing landscapes with an emphasis on regional poetics and expansion of market. MKE<->LAX offers support for empathetic, structural development of individual, organizational and community identity embracing various scales of experimentation and production. The initiative encourages active interpretation and embodied exploration of local places valuing public space, civic participation, economic sustainability, pedestrian awareness and celebration of difference.”

20. The Mountain School of Arts: www.themountainschoolofarts.org
Mission: to create an educational community of artists providing free instruction for an expansive field of inquiry.Founded 2005…the oldest, continuous artist-run school in CA. Offers an independent program with a serious and obligated faculty…considers itself a supplement and amendment to the university system. Open each year to selected students coming from all over the world. No fees. Next Term: February 20th-29th, 2016


“an autonomous, grassroots movement organized by community members, students, and educators to address the educational needs of our community. Rather than supplement the shortcomings of public education, our goal is to create an alternative educational space that emphasizes learning over memorization, encourages critical thinking, honors the value of manual skills and labor, and empowers participants to become active in their communities and struggle against social injustice. We welcome any class or workshop that promotes these goals and are receptive to all methods of learning and teaching.”

22. The Public School: http://thepublicschool.org/about-2
“In 2007, The Public School was initiated in Los Angeles in the basement of Telic Arts Exchange. The Public School is a school with no curriculum. It is not accredited, it does not give out degrees, and it has no affiliation with the public school system. It is a framework that supports autodidactic activities, operating under the assumption that everything is in everything.” Now in 14 locations, national and international. 

23. Resident Alien
Jimena Sarno: “Besides analog dissident, I organize resident alien, a free, short-term, project specific, need-based residency, for local and visiting artists. People of color, refugees, first generation immigrants, undocuqueers, future art students, recently graduated and low-income artists are encouraged to apply. Resident artists have access to a room in the studio for a month. At the end of the residency, artists can show their work in the space.

24. School for Movement of the Technicolor People: http://schoolforthemovement.com/
LACE presentsa large-scale installation and performance platform by Los Angeles based artist taisha paggett. This project, which takes the form of a dance school, is shaped by the question, “what is a Black dance curriculum today?” The installation itself, developed in collaboration with artists Ashley Hunt and Kim Zumpfe, serves as a temporary dance school, performance space and home for dance company, WXPT (We are the Paper, We are the Trees). The core of The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People is WXPT itself - a temporary, experimental community of queer people of color and allies, dancers and non-dancers alike. WXPT was conceived by paggett in early 2015 to expand upon the language and methods of modern and contemporary dance practices, to shift the ways dancers of color are positioned within the contemporary field, and to explore questions of queer desire, responsibility, migration and historical materials that inhabit our cultural imagination.”

25. School of Echoes (Ultra-Red): www.ultrared.org/pso6.html
“A long-term project designed to activate pedagogical spaces for development and dissemination of theory and practice in Militant Sound Investigation. The long-term goal of this project is the establishment of a cultural action institute for organizers, artists, and youth. Meanwhile, at the current phase in the project, Ultra-red members have sought to infiltrate art spaces and schools to explore the theoretical and practical traditions informing our notion of Militant Sound Investigation. In addition to classroom settings, Ultra-red has convened public meetings, titled "Encuentros," bringing together local artists, organizers and activists to explore how sound produces specific forms of knowledge that contribute to and challenge organizing strategies. Drawing on historical precedents such as Popular Education, Militant Inquiry, Participatory Action Research, as well as Feminist and anti-colonial learning, School of Echoes imagines a practice of knowledge production that can stimulate an exchange between organizing and art.”

26. Side Street Projects: http://sidestreet.org/
“Founded in 1992 by artists Karen Atkinson and Joe Luttrell, Side Street Projects began as a community fabrication shop and exhibition space located in the 18th Street Arts Complex in Santa Monica, California.” Since January 2008: “a completely mobile, self-sustaining community arts center. It exists off the grid in a collection of trailers and buses.” Currently: “parked on campus at John Muir High School. It now operates in seven trailers and three buses, several of which travel regularly to school and community sites to provide educational programs. At its home base in Northwest Pasadena, the administrative offices, shop and community programs are powered by a solar electric array.”

27. Union de Vecinos: www.uniondevecinos.net/
Initiated 1996 “An organization of neighborhood committees where low income working families, seniors, and youth come together to SEE the conditions of their neighborhoods, REFLECT on the root causes of these conditions, and ACT to bring about real concrete change.” Focused on: Building Community: through its Neighborhood Committees, organizes local clean-ups, murals, custom bench designs, community-wide cultural celebrations, stop lights and cross walks for safety, solar powered lighting in areas with no light posts, and many other initiatives that improve the quality of life in Boyle Heights and Maywood.  Developing Leaders… leverages 20 plus years of experience in community organizing and coalition building in the development of future community leaders.  Reclaiming Neighborhoods: Union de Vecinos has spent 20 years working with communities in Boyle Heights and Maywood to make government work for its low income citizens.  Through community organizing and strategic partnerships, Union de Vecinos has fought to maintain the integrity of these neighborhoods by ensuring that appropriate housing and public space addresses the needs of the people.” 

 28. The Walt Whitman School, 1919‐1924, 517 S. Boyle Ave

Right: Paul Avrich: The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States [1980]

29. Women’s Center for Creative Work: http://womenscenterforcreativework.com
2425 Glover Place, Los Angeles, CA 90031. “Founded in 2013, the Women’s Center for Creative Work, or WCCW, is a not-for-profit organization which cultivates LA’s Feminist Creative Communities and Practices. Combining a co-workspace on the LA river in Frogtown, project incubation facilities, residency programs, a rapidly growing network of over 7,000 followers, and a full calendar of artistic and professional development programming for female creatives, WCCW advocates for female-lead creative businesses and projects in Los Angeles. The project is simultaneously the work of its main collaborators –designer Kate Johnston and producer Sarah Williams– as well as a platform for our growing community’s ideas, works and projects. Through our Nodes Program we incubate kindred projects by providing insight, consultation, and access to our network.”

30. Youth Justice Center/Coalition/FREE LA High School: www.youth4justice.org/ 
“YJC: Working to build a youth, family, and formerly and currently incarcerated people’s movement to challenge America’s addiction to incarceration and race, gender and class discrimination in Los Angeles County’s, California’s and the nation’s juvenile and criminal injustice systems.” 

“For nearly all of us at the Youth Justice Coalition, our push into the juvenile injustice system began with our push out of school. On the street without a degree, youth find few options but the dangerous underground economy – at risk of death, injury, incarceration and deportation.  Nationwide, 80 percent of the people in prison don’t have a high school diploma.

In the fall of 2007, the YJC founded FREE L.A. High School – (Fight for the Revolution that Will Educate and Empower Los Angeles) – for youth ages 16 to 24.”

No comments:

Post a Comment

enter comments here

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.