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You are here: Home / LACE / 2015-2019 / To Oblivion: The Speculator’s Eden by Sandra de la Loza

To Oblivion: The Speculator’s Eden by Sandra de la Loza

LACE Summer Residency 2019 

Image Courtesy of the artist.

Organized by Daniela Lieja Quintanar, LACE Curator
Programming: Ancestral Healing and Resilience: Exploring Somatic Wisdom; To Oblivion: The Speculator’s Eden
Opening Reception July 10, 2019 7-10 PM
Exhibition Dates July 10 to September 1, 2019

In To Oblivion: The Speculator’s Eden, de la Loza creates a portal inside LACE’s main gallery to transport us into a “disturbance zone,” a ghostly and haunted space that unveils fragmented stories of this land we call Los Angeles. In excavating the past, unsettling glimpses of the city of the future surface via an immersive installation comprised of an archive of shadows, dematerialized artifacts, performative poems, and spectral ruins and stereoscopes.

De la Loza’s installation is based on long term research that investigates the history of transportation infrastructure and its impact on past, present, and future landscapes. Centered around the Los Angeles transit system, the artist evokes the final ride of a Pacific Electric car in 1955, which carried a banner reading “To Oblivion” before the entire system was dismantled and supplanted by a new freeway structure during the postwar era. It was a moment of dramatic change to the Los Angeles landscape and an exacerbation of the struggles of working-class communities.

The latest iteration of this ongoing project, To Oblivion: The Speculators’ Eden uncovers forgotten strata in and around the Cahuenga Pass, a path that now connects Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley, via the 101 Route, Hollywood Freeway. This thoroughfare has an extensive history as a former early 20th-century streetcar line, a segment of the Camino Real, the main route Spanish settlers traversed, an ancestral way for indigenous groups pre-settlers, a trail for coyotes and other animals, and a waterway for native plants. The early development of Hollywood aligns with our contemporary moment, where rapid development and massive displacement have wreaked havoc on the neighborhood. The speculators of a supposed Eden (Los Angeles and Hollywood) is/was a project of massive construction and imagination imposed on a city without consideration of what it was, leading to a violent erasure ignorant of the land and its inhabitants.

In contemplating pathways, undercurrents, and the scale and scope of transit-oriented development’s impact on the land, de la Loza loops the violence of the past into the present, which hauntingly echoes among the cranescape of Hollywood today in the midst of the latest iteration of a development frenzy.

The exhibition includes a selection of films curated by Penelope Uribe-Abee.

This exhibition includes a collaboration with the Summer Youth Program of LA Rooted a transformative educational organization dedicated to ancestral wisdom and environmental stewardship, community advocacy, self-care, and food justice.

Hyperallergic Programming Review

LA Weekly Review  Sandra de la Loza at LACE

Support for this exhibition is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the California Arts Council, and the Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles.

Photos by Chris Wormlad.

Sandra de la Loza is an artist who creates open-ended, research-based frameworks that guide inquiries that include visual, experimental, social and pedagogical components. Working as a performative archivist, she moves critically from and in between the institutional and the social occupying a variety of sites to interrogate underlying power dynamics and knowledge production through history and memory. She considers her efforts to co-generate autonomous spaces for artistic production, community action and critical dialogue that center the voices and history of people of color an important part of her practice. Such efforts have resulted in participating in collectively run community centers, pedagogical spaces, and multi-disciplinary events such as the Aztlan Cultural Arts Foundation (1993-1998), the October Surprise (2004), Arts in Action (2000-2004), Decolonize LA (2016-2017) and at land’s edge (2016-2018). Current exhibits include A Grammar Made of Rocks at Human Resources and a recent collaboration with Argentinian artist Eduardo Molinari, currently on view at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Talking to Action: Art, Activism, Pedagogy of the Americas. Her work has been exhibited in major museums, alternative art spaces and community centers within the United States, Latin America and Europe. She has received awards from Art Matters, the City of Los Angeles, the Center for Community Innovation, the California Community Foundation, and the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.

Filed Under: 2015-2019, Exhibition, LACE Tagged With: Arturo E. Romo, Cahuenga Pass, Camino Real, Campo de Cahuenga, development, Eden, El rio, Hollywood, Jen Hofer, LACE, los angeles, Olivia Chumacero, Orameh Bagheri, Pacific electric car, penelope Uribe-Abee, Sandra de la Loza, To Oblivion

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We’re grateful to everyone who joined us at “T We’re grateful to everyone who joined us at “This Home, Forever,” curated by 2025 LACE Emerging Curator Nahui Garcia. The two-day event featured performances by: @0ll668 @perras.bravas @lapovertydepartment  @michelelorusso @pacoimatechno @jakioeoeo

These performances took place during a fraught weekend for Los Angeles, with sirens and helicopters heard across downtown Los Angeles. On Sunday, @perras.bravas performed “Borderland Feelings,” a piece that seeks to shed light on and gather testimonies about the experiences, emotions, and demands that emerge when crossing the border. Participants were invited to share their border-crossing experiences by writing or illustrating them on a butterfly. These butterflies were later read aloud during the performance and placed on a body, symbolizing how the border becomes a scar that marks those who cross it.

This performance, along with the rest of the program, felt especially significant on that day. LACE remains committed to presenting socially-engaged projects and was founded as an experimental artistic space for freedom of expression and art that is socially and politically engaging. 

We’re glad to have shared space with LACE friends, collaborators, and colleagues, as well as new friends. 

Photos by Angel Origgi. (@angeloriggi)
Please join us in welcoming two new members to the Please join us in welcoming two new members to the LACE team! 

 🌟 LACE’s new Communications + Event Coordinator, Ida Tongkumvong is a Los Angeles-based arts administrator and marketing professional with a passion for expanding access to the arts and fostering inclusivity within creative spaces. She holds a B.A. in Communications from UCLA. Her previous roles with Sounding Point, the LA Phil, and CAP UCLA deepened her commitment to broadening arts access through strategic partnerships, inclusive programming, and dynamic storytelling. With a keen interest in public art and community-based initiatives, Ida brings a thoughtful and collaborative approach to audience development and creative event planning within L.A.’s contemporary arts landscape. Outside of work, you’ll often find her at a flea market or estate sale, always on the hunt for a one-of-a-kind find.

 🌟 LACE’s new Production + Operations Coordinator, Johnny Young began making his mark on the Los Angeles arts scene as Gallery and Programming Manager for the Juicy Beats Artist Exchange Lounge in 2000. He has worked with the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), where he played a key role in production and management for their First Fridays program; he was also selected for the prestigious Diversity Apprenticeship Program (DAP) at The Broad, a competitive initiative aimed at training the next generation of museum and gallery professionals from underrepresented communities. Johnny brings a sharp eye for detail, a commitment to equity in the arts, and a dedication to amplifying voices that challenge the boundaries of convention.
Did you get your tickets for “This Home, Forever Did you get your tickets for “This Home, Forever” happening this weekend? “This Home, Forever” is a stage, a forum, and a dynamic workshop nurtured by a group of artists and activists devoted to and inspired by Los Angeles. Learn more and get your tickets at the link in our bio. 

Held on the rooftop of the historic Bendix Building, performances will be presented with a 180 degree view of downtown Los Angeles. See performances by: @0ll668, @perras.bravas, @lapovertydepartment, @michelelorusso, @pacoimatechno, @jakioeoeo. 

Behind-the-scenes photos by @andreuuua  @selene__preciado and @abwyman
We’re still reminiscing about “ENDURANCE,” w We’re still reminiscing about “ENDURANCE,” which took place Saturday and Sunday, May 16–17. The series celebrated elder artists and their longstanding committment to their practices, through both performances and interdisciplinary work. Swipe through to see portraits from the two evenings, taken by Ray Barrera (@dreamfishcommuter).

Support LACE’s future, free public programs by making a donation at the link in our bio.

Performers pictured, in order of appearance: Hirokazu Kosaka, Awilda Sterling-Duprey (@awildasterling), Sheree Rose (@msrosebush), Sharon Kagan (@sharonkagan), Anna Homler with David Javelosa and Jeff Schwartz, Gloria Enedina Álvarez, Oguri, The Dark Bob, Barbara T. Smith and Ulysses Jenkins, Alice Bag (@alice_bag), Kid Congo Powers (@kidcongopowers), and Kamau Daáood.
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