The Venice Boardwalk (2002)

In 2001 the city of Los Angeles commissioned SPARC to create 15 mural memorials made of porcelain on metal to be inset on podiums alongside the newly renovated Venice boardwalk. SPARC used the project as an opportunity to memorialize historic murals of the Venice beach area, many of which had been disappeared or lost to real estate developments or neglect. The historic mural images were researched in SPARC’s extensive archive, the Mural Resource and Education Center (MREC), where one-of-a-kind slides were scanned and used to digitally reproduce historically important works by Art Mortimer, Rip Cronk, John Wherle, Christian Schlesinger, Emily Winters and others. The miniature murals are currently on display along the Venice Beach boardwalk where they serve as a walking tour highlighting the history of muralism and muralists in Venice.

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.