Roosevelt Community Center in San Jose, CA (2009)

The Roosevelt Community Center is located at 901 E. Santa Clara St. and is a new 30,000 square foot facility serving the residents of the downtown area. Roosevelt boasts a spectacular state-of-the-art community room with views of the park; a fitness center with both cardio and strength equipment; dance studio; preschool classrooms; computer lab; art room; a hip youth center that features the latest video gaming equipment, a computer lab and homework center as well as general use classrooms.

Mural by Scape Martinez in collaboration with the Digital Mural Lab. Print production and installation completed by DML.

The UCLA@SPARC Digital/Mural Lab led by UCLA Professor Judith F. Baca is the leading research, teaching and production facility in the country devoted to the creation of large-scale digitally generated murals, public art productions, and community cultural development practices.

The Lab is located in a community setting (the Old Venice Police Station) at the non-profit, Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) founded in 1976. (SPARCinLA.org)

In a sequence of 8 courses offered in three departments at undergraduate and graduate levels, students work in community settings with local community members on important issues engaging their imagination and academic research to produce permanent public artworks that tell the stories of diverse communities.

While dreaming hopeful solutions, these public artworks articulate solutions to difficult problems such as low achievement in the LAUSD schools, immigration, dropout rates, racial violence, substance abuse and economic disparity in Los Angeles neighborhoods.