Below is a collection of the completed paintings from the Emancipation Workshop. As part of Judy’s pedagogy, UCLA students of the Beyond the Mexican Mural class are empowered to join her in teaching the Emancipation Workshop to students of the Judy Baca Arts Academy. This multi-week workshop provides teaching experience for UCLA students and an opportunity for Judy Baca Arts Academy students to reflect upon and self-express his and her own distinctive identity. The first two weeks are devoted to talking and developing imagery to express the student’s identity. The third and fourth weeks are for painting! View the gallery to see what 6th grade students of the Judy Baca Arts Academy are passionate about and what they desire to do with their futures!
New Social Media Class By professor Judith F. Baca
Rafael Ramirez Solorzano
Major: Chicana and Chicano Studies
My intention was to create a video animation series for an emerging generation of Chicano Studies scholars, community activists, who are looking for frameworks that help them think critically about power, dominant ideologies, coalition building, heteropatriachy and multisided resistance.
Isabel Duron and Lawrence Lan
Major: Chicana and Chicano Studies. Major: Asian American Studies
The Right to Los Angeles project aims to document the many faces of gentrification and displacement throughout northeast Los Angeles City and to curate the creative grassroots organizing that has emerged in response to the changes that people have seen in their neighborhoods. http://sparcinla.org/ucla/isabel/
Nicolas Brenda
Major: Chicana and Chicano Studies
My Project is a social media site for use by the people of San Jerónimo Zoochina-Bene Xhiin to help fulfill their obligations to their village and to document the stories for others to learn about
the unique history and culture of my home in Oaxaca. http://sparcinla.org/ucla/brenda/
Kaelyn D. Rodriguez
Major: Chicana and Chicano Studies
This website supports a community of women of color artists while showcasing their artworks. It is a digital space to gather resources, have discussions, and learn more about women of color artists. http://artwoc.com
Maria Daniela Jimenez and Nadia Zepeda
Major: Chicana and Chicano Studies. Major: Chicana and Chicano Studies
A Chicanita’s Guide to…Borderlands/La Frontera is the inaugural issue for our online zine targeted at Chicanas (and other young girls of color) between the ages of 13-18. Our project’s intention is to provide a fun resource for young girls with the hope of that it can open up conversations around topics Chicanitas are not given the space to discuss or would like to learn about. We decided to begin our zine series with an introduction to Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera to expose Chicanitas to canonical Chicana feminist theory. http://achicanitasguideto.tumblr.com/
Maria Daniela Jimenez and Nadia Zepeda
Major: Education
YPAR stands for Youth Participatory Action Research. Through a co-collaboration with adult researchers, youth becomes researchers of their own social contexts to understand how to improve conditions and bring about greater equity” (Akom, Ginwright, & Cammarota, 2008, p.5). As POPP students, we will be engaging in the research process to investigate the topic of community policing that includes topics such as: 1) how our lived experiences and knowledge of Los Angeles can be used to build trust and relations with the Los Angeles community; 2) the role of race, class, gender, culture, language, sexuality, religion, age, etc. in policing; and 3) redefining community policing. Our project topics include bullying, drug abuse and effects, teen pregnancy, community programs, police officers as role models, same-sex couples and adoption, prostitution and human trafficking, imposter homeless, and wounded veterans. http://communitypolicingypar.com
As part of Judy’s pedagogy, UCLA students of the Beyond the Mexican Mural class are empowered to join her in teaching the Emancipation Workshop, also known as the Collaborative Portrait Workshop, to students of the Judy Baca Arts Academy. This multi-week workshop provides teaching experience for UCLA students and an opportunity for Judy Baca Arts Academy students to reflect upon and self-express his and her own distinctive identity. The first two weeks are devoted to talking and developing imagery to express the student’s identity. The third and fourth weeks are for painting! Here is a behind-the-scenes look at the Workshop.
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Finished Pieces
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On February 4, 2015, the UCLA Daily Bruin published the article,”Beyond Mexican Mural: Scenes of LA” featuring a video of the Winter 2015 Beyond the Mexican Mural students painting the mural LA Tropical at the UCLA@SPARC Digital Mural Lab in Venice, CA. LA Tropical culminates over 3 months of research, reflection and re-imaging of the relationship between one’s identity and Los Angeles.
Click on this link to view the video and article!
UCLA@SPARC: today, students in Professor Judy Baca’s Chicana/o Studies course, Beyond the Mexican Mural, are engaging in a mural production at SPARC… entitled, “LA Tropical”, the production offers students insight on how to facilitate collaborative community projects. Based on student research, the mural reflects the lives of ordinary Angelinos in a meaningful visual narrative. Stay tuned for the final product next week!
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(April 16, 2014), Venice, CA On Saturday, April 26, 2014, 2pm-5pm at 685 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291 (Old Venice Police Station), SPARC’s historic headquarters since 1977 – SPARC presents the dedication of the Esperanza mural, in honor of the Harbor City Workers featuring live music, D.J. and food vendors from the Los Angeles Workers Centers.
Since 1976, SPARC has engaged audiences in the most critical social and political issues of our time by providing empowerment through collaborative creative processes to communities excluded from civic debate; in this spirit, on March 22, 2014, SPARC began working with the Harbor City Workers Center (HCWC) to produce a portable mural that would bring public awareness to the struggles of the workers centers; the HCWC faces possible closure and is actively seeking funds to sustain their centers before their 3-month emergency grant from City of LA runs out; the workers center services 120 men and women from all skill sets and ethnicities and provides job training, English proficiently training, and writing courses, much of which is done by volunteer university students from LA Harbor College.
For more than two decades, Los Angeles has led the nation in developing models for people looking for work and homeowners and employers looking for workers to connect in an orderly, reliable, and safe environment. Worker Centers connect workers to jobs and communities to the labor needed to thrive; keeping gardens green, homes in good shape, and businesses with the open sign turned on. At a time where more people are looking for work or in-between jobs and immigrants are being farther marginalized, we need more worker centers not less. Los Angeles should increase its investment in the job opportunities, training, and work placement that Los Angeles’ Worker Centers are nationally known for but the centers are being threatened and could face closure within 3 months .
For every worker present at HCWC, there is one family that will be affected by its closure; the workers center has been active for over 25 years and has been a shining example of how public and non-profit partnerships can improve the wellness of our working populations. The mural being produced at SPARC, painted with support from workers at the HCWC, will not only represent the plight of their struggle but also uplift their spirits in the attempt to save their center. We hope that the work will become a beacon for the surrounding community to join in their struggle and support them in extending their contract.
The lead day-worker and organizer of the HCWC, Luis Valentan, is a rare find; he’s put his heart and soul into impactful and meaningful organizing and found a voice for his community at SPARC. Closing the Centers will have a adverse effect on thousands of businesses and home owners who depend on this workforce in the city.
For more information about the closure of Workers Centers and how you can support the movement, visit the Central American Resource & Education Center (CARECEN) at www.carecen-la.org, Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA) at www.idepsca.org or the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) at www.ndlon.org.
About SPARC: SPARC is a LA-based non-profit arts organization committed to Art, Community, Education and Social Justice. Founded in 1976 by UCLA Professor and muralist Judith F. Baca, filmmaker Donna Deitch, and artist Christina Schlesinger. For more info: http://www.SPARCinLA.org or call 310.822-9560 x15.
