The Great Wall of Los Angeles is Featured on Vista LA
Taken from ABC 7 website:
THE GREAT WALL OF L.A.
The Great Wall of Los Angeles is a cultural landmark and the longest mural in the world at 2,754 feet long. It is located in the San Fernando Valley, north of the Ventura Freeway, between the 405 and 170. It was produced under the direction of Professor Judith F Baca and is currently being restored by the Social Public Art and Resource Center. Plans include the expansion of the Great Wall of Los Angeles to add new decades of history to the giant narrative work. UCLA students of the Beyond the Mexican Mural course taught by Professor Baca and the Digital Mural Lab have been researching and designing new segments for the mural which will extend into the 6o’s 70’s, 80’s and 90’s of California History.
The mural, located in the Tujunga Wash Flood Control Channel, was begun in 1974 and was continued, decade-by-decade, over five summers. It brought together 400 youth and their families as well as artists, oral historians, ethnologists, scholars, and hundreds of community members from the many, diverse enclaves of Los Angeles. At half a mile long, it is one of the country’s largest monuments to inter-racial harmony and a landmark pictorial representation of the history of ethnic peoples of California from prehistoric times to the 1950’s.
This summer, alumni of the Great Wall youth teams (now parents with children the age they were when they first participated) will come together once again to lead the next generation in its restoration and continuation of the historical narrative, which highlights the contributions made by immigrants to the building of our country and state. The California Cultural and Historical Endowment has designated 1.2 million dollars for the Great Wall of Los Angeles’ restoration efforts. SPARC and Professor Baca are also collaborating with wHY Architecture to build a new, green, interpretive bridge over the Wall designed as an artist and architect collaboration. This green bridge is built, in part, from the debris and detritus of the LA River and will reconnect east to west, school to neighborhood. It both memorializes and reestablishes the relationship between the history of the Los Angeles River and the history of the people of Los Angeles.
