Los Angeles Indymedia : Activist News

In her first solo exhibit, photographer (and contributor to LA IndyMedia) Isabel Avila explores the dual identities of Native American and Mexican American cultures, emphasizing people active in their communities. Avila's photographs, taken over the last few years, are complimented by video discussions with the photo subjects and other people, including Gloria Arellanes, one of the early Brown Berets and member of the Tongva community. (Excerpts of these talks are included in the article below.) The free exhibit is currently at the Vincent Price Museum through December 8. It will then then relocate to Rancho Cucamonga's Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art and run from January 22 to March 16, 2013. (Location details within the article.)

"Through video dialogue and portraiture, the museum goers are not just given facts to go away with but are also left to make their own connections with this subject matter in their own lives," Avila explained.

Article: Isabel Avila's "Parallel Worlds" at the Vincent Price Art Museum by Ross Plesset, photos by Isabel Avila

For four nights in September, the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum presents the controversial one-woman play that has become a flashpoint for opposing viewpoints about Israel's presence in the Gaza strip. Susan Angelo directs Samara Frame in "My Name is Rachel Corrie,"composed from the journals, letters and emails of the 23-year-old American peace activist who died protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home in Gaza. Four performances take place on September 1, 8, 15, 22 at 8 pm in the S. Mark Taper Foundation Pavilion at Theatricum Botanicum. A moderated audience talk-back will follow each performance.

When the play premiered at the Royal Court in London, England in the spring of 2005, it played to sold-out houses and rave reviews. Despite this success, the New York Theatre Workshop put the planned U.S. premiere on hold in the face of public protests, including threats of violence. In the end, the play opened as a commercial production at the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village in the fall of 2006, and has since seen productions throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Preview: "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" Opens in LA by Theatricum Botanicum

Monday, Feb. 02, 2009 - "Fertile Dreams," a solo exhibit by LA artist Freyda Miller, opens Sat. Feb. 7 at Art Dimensions in Westwood. Integrating assemblage, photography, and installation, Miller explores complex aspects of the maternal psyche. The evocative and vulnerable portrayal of the feminine raises issues of autonomy, stereotypes, equality and self-esteem. Fertile Dreams takes on a life of its own, dealing with primal emotions and thoughts that transcend time and place. Images of life and death emerge along with dreamlike qualities of both flight and confinement. The exhibit runs thru Mar. 21.
Full Article: Fertile Dreams - Assemblage & Photography by Freyda Miller by Green Galactic

Did you make one of those creative, poignant, angry, sublime, ironic, raging signs we have been seeing in the recent Iraq protests? Did you labor over a handmade banner at all the anti-sweatshop marches? Did you make some amazing anti-Bush sign that has only been seen by your fellow protesters?

Now is the time to show them in a museum!

This autumn, the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest is organizing an exhibition at the Craft and Folk Art Museum (CAFAM) across the street from the LA Brea Tar Pits and LACMA. The exhibition is entitled "Street Signs and Solar Ovens: social craft in LA". The exhibit highlights both protest crafts (banners, activist lock-boxes, guerilla posters, placards, puppets), crafts gone political (sweaters with slogans) and utopian technologies (solar ovens, bikes, bio-desiel cars, bike bags...)

Donate Old Protest Posters and Placards for an Art Exhibit!!! by the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest