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You are here: Home / LACE / 2015-2019 / Oral Histories of Environmental Resistance

Oral Histories of Environmental Resistance

EN / ES

Oral Histories of Environmental Resistance
May 5, 2019,  2-4PM

As part of Unraveling Collective Forms  exhibition activist members Jennifer Reyes, Dimas Efren Donis and Hilda Dueñas from East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and artist Carolina Caycedo share stories of resistance in Los Angeles and other latitudes.

This event will have simultaneous interpretation in English/Spanish

Listen to PODCAST 1 | Oral Histories of Environmental Resistance

Bios
Jennifer Reyes is 16 years old junior in Bell Gardens High School. She plays for the varsity waterpolo and swim team and for BG High School and Commerce. She has been participating with East Yard and Youth in Action since freshman year.

Dimas Efren Donis is a dreamer since birth, interested in all noble and just causes, Guatemalan and U.S. citizen, an immigrant in California, United States at 19 years old, married to Maria Candelaria with two children who are their pride and joy. Dimas has worked in different jobs such as a gas station manager and many more, like many immigrants.

My name is Hilda Dueñas. I was born in Santa Lucia, municipality of Labarca Jalisco, Mexico. I am Mexican. I came to the United Stated when I was 17 years old looking for a better future, and got married in 1984 in Wilmington, CA. I worked in different places that allowed me to support my three daughters. When they started elementary school, I began to get involved in the Long Beach community. I’ve been a member of EYCEJ for 10 years, an organization that takes care of the environment. Today, I am a grandmother and continue in this fight, thinking about my grandchildren. I am now a citizen of the United States by means of naturalization and I feel more secure living in this country of immigrants.

Carolina Caycedo (b. 1978) was born in London to Colombian parents. She transcends institutional spaces to work in the social realm, where she participates in movements of territorial resistance, solidarity economies, and housing as a human right. Through work that investigates relationships of movement, assimilation and resistance, representation and control, she addresses contexts, groups and communities that are affected by developmental projects, like the constructions of dams, the privatization of water, and its consequences on riverside communities.  She lives and works in Los Angeles.

East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice (EYCEJ) is a community-based organization that works to facilitate self-advocates in East Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles and Long Beach. By providing workshops & trainings, EYCEJ prepares community members to engage in the decision-making processes that directly impact their health and quality of life.

Filed Under: 2015-2019, LACE, Performance Tagged With: Dimas Efren Donis, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Hilda Duenas, Jennifer Reyes, Unravelling Collective Forms

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PRESS RELEASE: Announcing LACE’s Next Emerging Curators

Announcing the 2025 Lightning Fund and Jacki Apple Awards

“Beatriz da Costa: (un)disciplinary tactics” named Best Art by The New York Times

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On Saturday, August 2 from 2–7pm, join LACE for On Saturday, August 2 from 2–7pm, join LACE for this year's Artists’ Film International (AFI'25) at the Philosophical Research Society (@philosophical_research_society).

This touring film program is collectively curated and presented by 16 international arts organizations and convened by Forma (@formaartsmedia). AFI’25 introduces the work of talented moving image artists to worldwide audiences, and will be live over 300 days, with exhibitions, screenings and public programs hosted across 4 continents.

LACE’s selection for AFI’25 is "Leymusoom Garden: New Sun" (2024) by Heesoo Kwon (@leymusoom). Kwon’s oneiric visual language and unique animation style allow her to create memoryscapes of personal and community liberation. The film rewrites mythical matrilineal histories through utopian and whimsical abstractions of time, space, and memory to ultimately bring forth healing and transformation. 

Admission is free! RSVP at the link in our bio.

Image caption:
Still from Heesoo Kwon, Leymusoom Garden: New Sun, 2024. Courtesy the artist
Join LACE for “Obsidian Reflections” happening Join LACE for “Obsidian Reflections” happening Saturday, July 19, 2–5 PM at the Philosophical Research Society (@philosophical_research_society).

Curated by Selene Preciado and Andrea Acuña, this film program presents a selection of video works that integrate ancestral knowledge and indigenous storytelling, imagining futures where the past and present connect through the power of ruins and resilience. Followed by a musical performance with multimedia NeoCumbia artist El Keamo (@el_keamo).

Learn more and RSVP at the link in our bio!
We are excited to announce LACE's 11th Emerging Cu We are excited to announce LACE's 11th Emerging Curator! Meet Semaj Peltier (@horsebreath87) and pom*pom (@__pom____pom__), collaborators in a curatorial collective and experimental film archive organizing community-based events since 2022. For the Emerging Curator Program, Semaj Peltier and Pom Pom curate "No Loneliness Like This," a film and food event showcasing experimental films that traverse the many manifestations of state-sanctioned isolation.

Peltier, a projectionist, archivist and filmmaker, brings a praxis shaped by her studies at the University of Amsterdam’s Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image Masters program, specializing in ephemeral histories shaped by coloniality and otherness. pom*pom, developed by Russell Hartling and Crystal Dawana, is an experimental food collective whose sensory-driven dining experiences intersect with film programming to evoke memory, storytelling, and connection. Together, they build worlds where film and food become tools of resistance—rituals that evoke memory, incite dialogue, and nurture solidarity through shared sensation and subversion. 

This year’s panel included Jheanelle Brown (@jheaneeeeeelle), faculty member at CalArts and Curator of Film at REDCAT; Carrie Chen (@carriechen01), artist, curator, and educator; and Heber Rodriguez (@hebereatschips), Coordinator for the City of Lancaster’s Parks, Recreation and Arts Department in the Arts and Museums Division. 

Read the full press release in our bio!
If you missed “ENDURANCE” or want to relive th If you missed “ENDURANCE” or want to relive the experience, head over to the LACE website to watch a selection of the performances with more to come soon!

“ENDURANCE” presented performance art and interdisciplinary work by elder artists. These artists use their practices to share wisdom, knowledge, and experiences that they have gained throughout their lives. This series is a companion program to LACE’s 2024 performance series, “ABUNDANCE”, both featuring often invisibilized bodies.

This program was held at L.A. Dance Project (@ladanceproject) from May 16–17, 2025.

The online presentation of “ENDURANCE” is supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles (@culture_la). 

Photos by Angel Origgi (@angeloriggi).

Image captions in order:
Barbara T. Smith, OWB, 2025
Ulysses Jenkins and his band “Who Dat!,” Ethnic Cleansing, 2022/2025
Hirokazu Kosaka, Shoot Yourself, 2025
The Dark Bob, Beirut, 1982/2025
Kamau Daáood, Griot notes: Poem in Invisible Ink
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