Compass Rose
—
May 28 – Aug 16, 2019
Oxy Arts, Los Angeles
Made possible by the Arts and
Urban Experience Initiative, which
is generously funded by the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Compass Rose
—
May 28 – Aug 16, 2019
Oxy Arts, Los Angeles
Made possible by the Arts and
Urban Experience Initiative, which
is generously funded by the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Compass Rose
—
May 28 – Aug 16, 2019
Oxy Arts, Los Angeles
Made possible by the
Arts and Urban Experience Initiative, which is
generously funded by
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Compass Rose
—
May 28 – Aug 16, 2019
Oxy Arts, Los Angeles
Made possible by the Arts and
Urban Experience Initiative, which
is generously funded by the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Compass Rose
—
May 28 – Aug 16, 2019
Oxy Arts, Los Angeles
Made possible by the Arts and
Urban Experience Initiative, which
is generously funded by the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
We live within the map: connected by the grid, represented by a dot. Instinct tells us to locate ourselves within these paper places. We identify the dots that form our own lives, often crossing boundaries of city, country, desert and ocean, to create the maps that hold our stories.
Colonial history rewrote the past. Early maps of Los Angeles make no mention of our Tongva origins, and scarcely acknowledge early boundaries in which California was Mexico. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas, now a key tool in decoding the evolution of American cities, literally pasted new information atop the old, leaving no access to the history or stories beneath.
Compass Rose celebrates community and collective memory by redrawing maps of Northeast Los Angeles based on personal stories of long-time residents. The project inaugurates the new Oxy Arts community art center on York Boulevard in Highland Park, Los Angeles. This is a uniquely meaningful project for Scacco who is a resident of Highland Park, and was a tenant of the building that now houses Oxy Arts. She was forced to leave when the building was purchased by the College.
The project was a unique year-long collaboration between Scacco, Oxy Arts, multiple departments at Occidental College and 31 community members. These storytellers, spanning generations and cultures, generously shared their stories, with topics ranging from gentrification and whitewashing to the Chicano Moratorium. These narratives launch NELA Stories: an ongoing community story collection and archive to be housed at Occidental College. The resulting public archive and accompanying exhibition and related programming contributes to documenting the collective memory of a neighborhood in flux.
The Compass Rose exhibition consists of a large-scale glass installation based on a deconstructed map of Northeast Los Angeles, an oversized artist book inspired by the historic Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas and redrawn to reflect the memories of the community, audio interview clips, and the opportunity to listen to or read each of the interviews in full.
Compass Rose
Glass, monofilament, carabiners, Yupo paper, Duralar, acrylic, ink, audio recordings
17 x 10 x 14 ft, 2019
Click on images below to view full screen.
We live within the map: connected by the grid, represented by a dot. Instinct tells us to locate ourselves within these paper places. We identify the dots that form our own lives, often crossing boundaries of city, country, desert and ocean, to create the maps that hold our stories.
Colonial history rewrote the past. Early maps of Los Angeles make no mention of our Tongva origins, and scarcely acknowledge early boundaries in which California was Mexico. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas, now a key tool in decoding the evolution of American cities, literally pasted new information atop the old, leaving no access to the history or stories beneath.
Compass Rose celebrates community and collective memory by redrawing maps of Northeast Los Angeles based on personal stories of long-time residents. The project inaugurates the new Oxy Arts community art center on York Boulevard in Highland Park, Los Angeles. This is a uniquely meaningful project for Scacco who is a resident of Highland Park, and was a tenant of the building that now houses Oxy Arts. She was forced to leave when the building was purchased by the College.
The project was a unique year-long collaboration between Scacco, Oxy Arts, multiple departments at Occidental College and 31 community members. These storytellers, spanning generations and cultures, generously shared their stories, with topics ranging from gentrification and whitewashing to the Chicano Moratorium. These narratives launch NELA Stories: an ongoing community story collection and archive to be housed at Occidental College. The resulting public archive and accompanying exhibition and related programming contributes to documenting the collective memory of a neighborhood in flux.
The Compass Rose exhibition consists of a large-scale glass installation based on a deconstructed map of Northeast Los Angeles, an oversized artist book inspired by the historic Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas and redrawn to reflect the memories of the community, audio interview clips, and the opportunity to listen to or read each of the interviews in full.
Compass Rose
Glass, monofilament, carabiners, Yupo paper, Duralar, acrylic, ink, audio recordings
17 x 10 x 14 ft, 2019
Click on images below to view full screen.
We live within the map: connected by the grid, represented by a dot. Instinct tells us to locate ourselves within these paper places. We identify the dots that form our own lives, often crossing boundaries of city, country, desert and ocean, to create the maps that hold our stories.
Colonial history rewrote the past. Early maps of Los Angeles make no mention of our Tongva origins, and scarcely acknowledge early boundaries in which California was Mexico. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas, now a key tool in decoding the evolution of American cities, literally pasted new information atop the old, leaving no access to the history or stories beneath.
Compass Rose celebrates community and collective memory by redrawing maps of Northeast Los Angeles based on personal stories of long-time residents. The project inaugurates the new Oxy Arts community art center on York Boulevard in Highland Park, Los Angeles. This is a uniquely meaningful project for Scacco who is a resident of Highland Park, and was a tenant of the building that now houses Oxy Arts. She was forced to leave when the building was purchased by the College.
The project was a unique year-long collaboration between Scacco, Oxy Arts, multiple departments at Occidental College and 31 community members. These storytellers, spanning generations and cultures, generously shared their stories, with topics ranging from gentrification and whitewashing to the Chicano Moratorium. These narratives launch NELA Stories: an ongoing community story collection and archive to be housed at Occidental College. The resulting public archive and accompanying exhibition and related programming contributes to documenting the collective memory of a neighborhood in flux.
The Compass Rose exhibition consists of a large-scale glass installation based on a deconstructed map of Northeast Los Angeles, an oversized artist book inspired by the historic Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas and redrawn to reflect the memories of the community, audio interview clips, and the opportunity to listen to or read each of the interviews in full.
Compass Rose
Glass, monofilament, carabiners, Yupo paper, Duralar, acrylic, ink, audio recordings
17 x 10 x 14 ft, 2019
Click on images below to view full screen.
We live within the map: connected by the grid, represented by a dot. Instinct tells us to locate ourselves within these paper places. We identify the dots that form our own lives, often crossing boundaries of city, country, desert and ocean, to create the maps that hold our stories.
Colonial history rewrote the past. Early maps of Los Angeles make no mention of our Tongva origins, and scarcely acknowledge early boundaries in which California was Mexico. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas, now a key tool in decoding the evolution of American cities, literally pasted new information atop the old, leaving no access to the history or stories beneath.
Compass Rose celebrates community and collective memory by redrawing maps of Northeast Los Angeles based on personal stories of long-time residents. The project inaugurates the new Oxy Arts community art center on York Boulevard in Highland Park, Los Angeles. This is a uniquely meaningful project for Scacco who is a resident of Highland Park, and was a tenant of the building that now houses Oxy Arts. She was forced to leave when the building was purchased by the College.
The project was a unique year-long collaboration between Scacco, Oxy Arts, multiple departments at Occidental College and 31 community members. These storytellers, spanning generations and cultures, generously shared their stories, with topics ranging from gentrification and whitewashing to the Chicano Moratorium. These narratives launch NELA Stories: an ongoing community story collection and archive to be housed at Occidental College. The resulting public archive and accompanying exhibition and related programming contributes to documenting the collective memory of a neighborhood in flux.
The Compass Rose exhibition consists of a large-scale glass installation based on a deconstructed map of Northeast Los Angeles, an oversized artist book inspired by the historic Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas and redrawn to reflect the memories of the community, audio interview clips, and the opportunity to listen to or read each of the interviews in full.
Compass Rose
Glass, monofilament, carabiners, Yupo paper, Duralar, acrylic, ink, audio recordings
17 x 10 x 14 ft, 2019
Click on images below to view full screen.
We live within the map: connected by the grid, represented by a dot. Instinct tells us to locate ourselves within these paper places. We identify the dots that form our own lives, often crossing boundaries of city, country, desert and ocean, to create the maps that hold our stories.
Colonial history rewrote the past. Early maps of Los Angeles make no mention of our Tongva origins, and scarcely acknowledge early boundaries in which California was Mexico. The Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas, now a key tool in decoding the evolution of American cities, literally pasted new information atop the old, leaving no access to the history or stories beneath.
Compass Rose, an exhibition by artist Debra Scacco, inaugurates the new Oxy Arts community art center on York Boulevard in Highland Park, celebrating community and collective memory by redrawing maps of Northeast Los Angeles based on personal stories of long-time residents.
The project was a unique year-long collaboration launched by Oxy Arts, the College’s community-based arts hub, bringing together multiple departments at Occidental College in collaboration with 31 community members. These community members, spanning generations and cultures, generously shared their stories, with topics ranging from gentrification and whitewashing to the Chicano Moratorium. These stories are the basis for the exhibition and accompanying programming. These narratives also inaugerate the launch of NELA Stories: an ongoing program of community story collection and archive to be housed at Occidental College.
The Compass Rose exhibition consists of a large-scale stained glass installation based on a deconstructed map of Northeast Los Angeles, a large-scale artist book, inspired by the historic Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlas, redrawn to reflect the memories of the community, audio interview clips, and the opportunity to listen to or read each of the interviews in full.
Compass Rose is a uniquely meaningful project for Scacco. The artist is both a resident of Highland Park, and was once one of the tenants of the building that is now Oxy Arts. Forced to leave when the building was purchased by the College, now creating public work in the space is particularly resonant. The result is the development of a public archive and accompanying exhibition that contributes to documenting the collective memory of a neighborhood in flux.
Compass Rose
Glass, monofilament, carabiners, Yupo paper, Duralar, acrylic, ink, audio recordings
17 x 10 x 14 ft, 2019
Click on images below to view full screen.
