Arts Council for Long Beach Presents A LOT

The most common reaction most people have when the subject of vacant lots comes up is probably not a very positive one. We tend to think of them as empty, unused spaces of dirt in our city that might even take on the connotations of blight and abandonment. Long Beach seems to have a different view of these open urban areas and has consistently utilized them for potential public good. The community has actually rehabilitated many vacant land spaces in the city, turning them into parks, community gardens and other forms of green zones.

Now the Arts Council of Long Beach has gotten into the spirit of reusing these spaces with a program called A LOT, a series of temporary performance and visual arts-based initiatives focused on utilizing the available open land spaces within our community. It is not a new idea to utilize open land in the urban landscape for art, but it is nice to see our Arts Council getting in the spirit of integrating the arts into the community any way they can.

The concept of illegally commandeering a vacant lot for an impromptu happening or performance, or legally working through city government channels (which we suggest) to utilize vacant lots for semi-permanent or permanent arts spaces, has been a hallmark of urban art for a long time. In 1966 a group called the Artists’ Protest Committee led by Irving Petlin built a structure referred to as Peace Tower in a vacant lot in West Hollywood as a protest against the Vietnam War. As recently as the fall of 2009 a New York-based organization called LentSpace took over a vacant lot in SoHo and developed it as a space for temporary installations scheduled to take place over the next few years. I don’t think artists see blight and abandonment in a vacant lot, I think they see a blank canvas, an open space where creativity and community come together.

The A LOT series has great potential to build community support for more diverse art forms in our city and showcase the creative energy that already flows through our neighborhoods. I’m looking forward to the A LOT events coming up and give kudos to the Arts Council for jumping in and getting their hands a little dirty.

The first A LOT event will take place in Cambodia Town and will be activated by the Collage Dance Theatre in a performance called EXPULSION, a thematic cross-disciplinary piece that explores immigration and dislocation by investigating the temporal and transitory nature of “home.” The performance features dancers from the Long Beach Khmer Arts Academy and will incorporate narratives from the community. It will take place at 6:00pm on March 19 and will be followed by a discussion with Heidi Duckler, Artistic Director of CDT; Guillermo Avilés Rodríguez, Artistic Director of Watts Village Theatre Company; Felicia Filer, Director of Public Art at the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; and Craig Watson, Executive Director of the Arts Council for Long Beach. Another performance is scheduled for 6:00pm at the Mark Twain Library, 1401 E. Anaheim Street, Long Beach, CA 90813.

The A LOT series is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Art Commission. For more information on the Arts Council and its programs, visit www.artslb.org