Man: What I'm trying to do is tell people to look again at something that they haven't really looked at.

It's the visual attempts to try to figure what is Los Angeles.

Woman: This is not just like a fad.

There, like, needs to be space for us, not just in the art scene.

I think in everything.

Woman 2: Because we're looking at certain experiences or the past, we are, like, either preparing ourselves for the future or changing the future.

We're, like, feeling like we need to speak up.

[Funk music playing] ♪ Announcer: This program was made possible in part by a grant from Anne Ray Foundation, a Margaret A. Cargill philanthropy; the Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture; the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; the Frieda Berlinski Foundation; and the National Endowment for the Arts, on the web at arts.gov.

♪ [Static] Man: There's a lot of things going on in the city.

Like, there's just stimuli everywhere, and I'm paying attention, being present and letting that landscape dictate to me and provide what I'm painting next.

It's the visual attempts to try to figure what is Los Angeles.

It's finished but it's unresolved.

There's parts that might kind of be murky and kind of behind layers.

It's being broken down.

It's being built.

It's being gentrified, it's land that's being fought for, it's land that's being sold.

My work is informed by Los Angeles--the landscape, the people, and America as a whole.

I think that's where the bridge comes in with, like, you know, having the work grow legs and do sort of work that speaks to people's struggles and speaks to people's turmoil because it's all part of the land.

It's the backdrop.

It's all intertwined.

So, what does that look like in a physical painting?

I think that's what I'm trying to kind of figure out.

It's almost like my background, you know, like my dad being, you know, an indigenous Native American, Mexican, and my mother being from the Philippines.

It's all those stories kind of combined into one and it's like excavating that and building it and putting it all together.

Nancy Reagan: Say yes to your life, and when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no.

Mike Tyson: I am Mike Tyson, a professional fighter.

You can keep drugs out of your life and knock them out of society by saying no.

Say no to drugs.

Patrick: So, I feel like the eighties was, like, very, like, thumbs up and, like, people were kind of, like, pretending to be happy.

You know, obviously, not just that simple.

You know, you don't really have a large scope when you're a little child.

You just kind of see things on TV.

Everything's very white, you know, on sitcoms.

Man: I know it's really early but I brought Nancy with me so you'd let me in.

[Laughter] Patrick: So, you know, maybe when I was in seventh or eighth grade, it felt like, wow, like, I'm definitely not one of these kids, these, you know, these White kids with blond hair.

And even at school, like, it felt like, I don't know, like, just, like, the White kids were cooler or like, you know, because they were being reflected on this big scale, right?

And I remember learning about the police department and the cops would come to our school and it was like, just say no to drugs and... [Pop music playing] Woman: ♪ Learning when to say no ♪ McGruff: Hey, no.

Woman: ♪ That's what you need to do ♪ Patrick: That was the eighties.

It was like, hey, guys, like, let's be down with the police and, like, don't do drugs because you'll turn into a drug addict and, you know, you're gonna break into someone's house to, you know, fund your drug addiction.

It was like that.

The nineties were the total opposite of that, right?

It was like, oh, the cops are full of [beep] because they're look--'91, they're beating Rodney King, right?

And then the uprising happened in '92.

And then like, you know, like, it's just everything was flipped.

I think it was till 2005 that I started messing with the Pee-Chee folder.

I remember the Pee-Chee folder from middle school and high school.

It was a Scholastic All-American folder that I wanted to subvert and update 'cause originally it came out in 1950, 1960, and it was an idealized version, you know, White kids playing basketball, football, running track.

Very, you know, just, like, outdated idea of high school.

So, I wanted to update it, right?

Like, kid running from a cop or cop arresting kid is like, you know, whatever.

Like, I drew the first Pee-Chee folder kind of remix back in 2005 in school and I made a silk screen of it in 2008.

Chris: We came from a good home, man.

You know.

There was nothing--you know, my parents did the best they could with what they had.

Unfortunately, you know, like, I was hanging around bad elements.

Grew up with kids that were just, you know, no good in the end, you know what I mean?

You know, my brother did, too, but I think he sensed the wrongdoing in what we were doing.

Patrick: There was a lot of frustration with my parents.

Mostly my mother.

Trying to understand what the hell we're doing, you know?

Chris: I got robbed in the seventh grade by some kids, couple kids from high school.

I didn't know people did that.

You know?

I didn't know people, you know, kids do that.

And that [beep] traumatizing, man.

It's--immediately, I stopped going to school.

I started hanging around different kinds of kids.

You know, ditching.

Patrick: My brother would, you know, he's only two years older than me but he would get pulled over.

You know, cops would try to plant guns in his car, in his trunk.

All kinds of stuff.

It was just, like, this violence that just kind of came out of nowhere.

Chris: When I was in high school, I started getting into graffiti.

You know, started getting into just tagging.

That was another cool thing that I liked to do.

You know, that, well, you know, rebellious, I guess.

Patrick: I remember there were these times where you'd just drive around with my brother.

We'd do graffiti and, you know, just hang out.

It was like--it was kind of, like, felt like hopeless, you know?

Like, what are we doing?

Like, God, like, what has to happen for, you know, us to be OK or, like, happy as a whole?

Graffiti art taught me at a very young age, like, discipline.

I mean, no one's gonna get together a sketch, get together colors, right, from the hardware store, and then on top of that paint it where you might get arrested for it.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's just like a, that's a lot of discipline that goes into that.

Like, it wasn't anything that I could explain.

It's just something I, you know, that had to happen, you know?

And I felt it like, you know, not like--like, I didn't have to go to art school to know that I wanted to make art.

Chris: It's like a certain rush, like, there was a rush to do all that.

I think I got cracked one time.

Like, 'cause we were-- we used to mob buses a lot.

People would get the front, you know, front windshield, back.

Streetside.

Everything, right?

Kill it up.

And I remember one time we were, like, we're ready.

Like, come on, I'm a mob, and it was so many people there that I had to get the-- I was like, man, I'm gonna get the back bumper.

And then I heard somebody--"Narcs!"

I'm, like, looking around.

I don't see no [beep] cops.

You know, I don't see no uniforms.

Sure enough, there's [beep] narcs on the damn bus and one of them chased me down and caught me.

I'm telling you, man, like, I had cops running inside of our house, you know?

And my mom was--she was a soldier, man.

Like--and I still put her through it, man.

I was in--I didn't think twice about their--what they were going through because I was off of drugs.

And then when I went to prison and got out, I was like, man, what am I supposed to do now, you know?

A real, just like a big wake-up call.

Patrick: It felt like we had to deal with a lot but it's nothing like, you know, you have, like, a million or a couple million dollars around and you're just like, it's all good, dude.

I'll just buy you a house or something like this.

You know, what can you do?

So, that's the violence we deal with.

It's, like, not just, like, this dramatic, like, over-the-top violence.

This is like a subtle violence of money violence, right?

Like, of not having it or not having the money increase in your--in what you do to deal with inflation and, like, the cost of, you know, the cost of things going up.

With the physical things that I'm doing, hopefully maybe affecting my family.

Think about my brother who drives forklifts.

Right now, he's probably sleeping and he'll get up at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning to go drive forklifts.

He doesn't have a retirement.

He doesn't have a 401(k).

Where I reference neon from, where it came up for me was back in 2008.

I had a studio in downtown Los Angeles and I would drive home at night and I would always notice these neon signs on even though there was no one in the streets.

The businesses were closed but these neon signs would be on.

They would be like a pawn shop sign on, laundromat, income tax, 24 karat gold, ATM, everything, right?

Open.

Liquor.

And I always thought, like, it was weird that they would keep these neons on, that they're advertising their business while people sleep or drive, walk by.

So, I thought that there was always, like, a dialogue.

The language of the passerby was being spoken to.

I imagined those passerby saying things back to the neon.

So, it was kind of like remixing what already exists in the vocabulary that was already out there and it was really kind of like this can be a vehicle to speak to my cousin, my brother, my family, my friends.

Chris: And soon as I got out, you know, my brother let me stay at his place.

He let me parole there, you know?

He showed me... to be a more compassionate person.

You know, like... this person right now wasn't here years ago.

I went one way and he went another and he never got sucked into what I did.

Drugs, gang.

You know, like, he could've easily been like that.

Easily.

But he stayed focused on what he had a passion for and did his thing.

You know.

Pretty dope, man.

♪ Gabriella: I would say my work is composite portraits that I make using family photographs, historical photographs, and personal photographs, even cultural photographs from, like, pop culture to make composite portraits that study the psychology of body language.

Also a level of, like, deciphering code in different levels of communication.

At first, I don't think I really connected design with art as much, but then once I started working as a freelance graphic designer after school, I was doing it so much and started falling, like, in love with composition and typography and layout, and I think you can definitely see the link in design with my work by incorporating typography.

I like to play with language even just seeing how the same word repeated but in a different style can change the way that the word is interpreted.

So, for example, the word "homes."

The sans serif font "homes," like, you might think of, OK, like, a house or homes for sale.

And I usually use, like, a Helvetica font, which is really standard, and then using--seeing the word "homes" in a Gothic script, which maybe brings up more connotations of tattoos or L.A. or Latino culture here.

Man: What's up, Tovner?

Man 2: ...homes?

Man 1: ...already a party, ese.

Man 3: ♪ Back at the hood with some crazy vatos ♪ [Static] Gabriella: For me, I'm interested in the way people make space for themselves or embody that space, and I think, you know, I work a lot with family photographs, so, there is this kind of internal mapping that happens about that can be psychological or about gender or about how comfortable maybe that person was in the photo depending on if their body language is more open or if it's a little more guarded.

Emily: One of my cousins.

Look at how skinny Grandma was.

This is a nice family photo.

Gabriella: Mm-hmm.

Aww, I haven't seen that.

Or it's been a while since I've seen that one.

Emily: Daddy and Jackie.

That's probably before you were born.

Will you use these kind of photos in your art?

Gabriella: I don't know.

Emily: How did that come to pass?

How did you decide on?

Gabriella: I think for me, it started with just-- started with, like, the process of trying to, like, process the grief of losing Dad and...yeah.

And so, it's just... Emily: Yeah.

Your first show was all about your dad.

Gabriella: Yeah, like, yeah, about him, about... just, like, the weight that-- I think just, like, wanting to...give him some life that was--he was able to, like, be a little more dynamic and, like, have the complexity of a full person that wasn't so, like, good or bad, because I felt like he really carried that, especially because he was always in and out of jail and all of that kind of stuff, you know?

You know, just like--yeah.

This--yeah.

Emily: Like that first show--your first show about your dad, that was healing, healing for me, and mainly because I saw that it was healing for you.

You know, it was something that you held on to for a long time.

Your pain, without really totally expressing it.

Gabriella: Yeah.

I think my art's always been kind of, like, a way of, like, processing or just, like, being present.

My dad was, like, he would--he was actually, like, one of my main caregivers in the beginning.

It was a lot of him teaching me how to, like, read and understand situations in the city and all the many different levels of communication that it can give you.

So, this next show is gonna be self-portraits.

I need to subject myself to that process if I'm going to use, I think, any more-- if I'm gonna keep doing composite portraiture to be able to see how I'm comfortable kind of composing my own body and learning and, like, going through the process of being a feminine body and building that composite portrait and seeing how much I'm comfortable leaving myself exposed in multiple metaphors of the word or guardage, you know?

I just feel like if I've been doing this to everyone else, it's my turn.

I gotta do it to myself, too, or else I'm letting myself get away with it.

Ha!

♪ [Static] OK, let's talk about the word "archive."

So, what I'm archiving, it's the 1990s rave scene and party crew scene.

Mostly brown, mostly Latinx.

The reason I started this work is not just, like, about, like, preservation or telling stories or storytelling.

What actually pushed me to start these projects was, like, the erasure of our--of, like, our experiences and culture.

And I remember, like, just, like, scrolling on the internet before starting.

It was like, there's something that's missing.

Like, what's up with, like, the rave scene in L.A.?

Like, you don't see pictures.

If you type in 1990s raves, it's all White people.

And I remember thinking, like, that's not what we experienced here in L.A.

It was such a mixed crowd.

♪ [Static] Woman: Chris Blackford takes us to several of their violent parties in this Fox-- Man: Here at a Baldwin Park home, where hot dogs and chicken wings sizzle on the grill and tattooed tummies of go-go dancers tantalize teenage testosterone.

Tequila pops up by the gallon and goes down by the shot.

There's the Joker... and the Doper.

Boy: Hi, Mom.

[Static] Rosales: OK.

So, Veteranas and Rucas is a community-sourced archive that celebrates our culture, and it's mostly focused on women.

I had to kind of, like, walk people through what is-- what this meant for us and what it was because when you say party crew, people don't know what that is.

So, I had to, like, describe that, you know?

And I started the page, putting materials out that people were more familiar with, like cholas and cholos, and then little by little started introducing this other, like, subculture.

And it just blew up.

I also wanted to create a space that people can engage with and also contribute to.

Someone's like--if someone sends a photo of themselves at a party wearing, like, whatever, like, Ben Davis and with Adidas, like, people would look at that picture and remind them of their own, like, past, you know, and then that kind of thing was like, OK, that picture reminds me of how I used to dress.

I have pictures like that, too, so, I'm gonna submit them.

So, it just kind of went like this, like, chain reaction.

We've had conversations about police brutality.

Violence.

Which means that we're creating this, like, collectiveness, like, collective, like, storytelling.

Growing up in East L.A., which is, like, the nineties, so, my--the house that I lived in, it was literally, like, you could see Whittier Boulevard from where I lived.

To hang out with friends, we would also, like, sneak out of the house in the middle of the night, you know, and then for that, like, my memory of that is having some sort of code to know--'cause this was, like, before cell phones and stuff, so, we only had, like, pagers.

We would, like, plan on a, like, a whistle or a song.

If we heard, like, a specific song outside, we knew it was them.

And so, then we started, like, OK, strategizing, OK, with my sister.

One of us will go to the bathroom, flush the toilet, and the other one would, like, open the door and run out, you know, so then, like, we'll, like, flush the toilet so my mom wouldn't hear, like, the sound or whatever, and then eventually, like, she caught us, and once she caught us, we were like, [beep], OK, we're just gonna--we're just gonna, like, rebel, I guess, and started going out.

♪ [Static] I've been photographing all these sites that have some, like, personal meaning.

They're all shot, like, in, like, nocturnal hours.

But what I wanted to--what I'm capturing is the essence of the night, what it feels like.

It's, also, like, a generous thing to do, right?

Like, to show the world these parts of L.A. that people don't get to see.

You know, when people think of L.A., they think of, like, the Hollywood sign or, like, daytime, you know, and, like, these are all like...at night.

They feel like...like, hidden.

So, in East L.A., there's all these shortcuts that kind of cut between the street, like, it connects two streets, and the cops were chasing us, right?

Like, we knew how to get away because there were all these, like, ways to get around.

So, that's what is so, like, personal and special to me.

I still know what it feels like to be out there at night.

Like, the crisp air, the clear blue sky at night, you know.

Like, for example, one that's called "Winter Solstice."

That's--I've been shooting that same site every year.

That's the site where my cousin died.

It was around the time when all these gangs were making, like, peace treaty or truce parties.

Violence was getting out of control.

So, then gangs started kind of, like, trying to make peace with each other.

So, this party was supposed to be that, you know?

True rival gangs getting together, which to this day I don't know if it was, like, a setup or something just went wrong.

I know he died sometime around 11:30 that night.

So, that's the energy that I'm trying to capture 'cause I do remember what it felt like then, when I found out, you know?

Like, it was hazy at night, it was cold, and I go out there when it feels like that, you know?

In order for us to change the future, we need to look at our past to learn from that, right?

Even if it's like--like about trauma or violence, there's some sort of--like, the outcome of that is about celebration, about empowerment by sharing the story.

So it's almost like a healing circle that happens, and that becomes part of American culture, want this material to exist as part of a part of history.

♪ [Indistinct singing] ♪ Woman: Hey!

Hey!

Hey!

♪ Woman: So I was born in the San Fernando Valley in Golden View in 1991, June 23rd, 1991.

The Valley really exposed me to a lot of diverse backgrounds.

Well, I think of Van Nuys Boulevard specifically.

Van Nuys Boulevard, you know, it has different types of restaurants.

It has swap meets.

It has, like, bargain store, thrift stores.

A lot of the community that I grew up in was, like, undocumented, lower-income, Brown and Black people.

A lot of my friends were into, like, different things.

You had metalheads, you had punk heads.

Like, you had kids who were into, like, different things, you know?

Like, yeah, listening to Morrissey.

Morrissey: ♪ Oh, oh, oh I'm the sunshine Oh, oh, oh ♪ Gabriela: I had friends who were into 1920s music, just, like, a little bit of everything.

I was always really attracted to, like, arts and crafts.

So when we would have, like, arts and crafts, I would go the extra mile.

Like, I'm like, "Oh, you're doing this."

I'm like, "Let me do this.

Let me try this.

Let me cut this paper this way."

Just like trying to be as crazy as I could, I guess.

♪ I work in multimedia, which is I, like, paint.

I do sculptures.

I do installations and performance.

And a lot of the subject revolves around the self, home, and my environment.

I think color is very important in my work.

It just shows the mood or the mood of what I'm feeling at the moment.

♪ So this piece is called "The Power of Nine."

This piece talks about my favorite bargain store in the Vallely.

When you walk into these places, they are so colorful, they're so vibrant, they're so inviting.

Like, you want to go buy everything.

But you walk in and you really are hit with this, like, smell of chemicals from all the products.

The products there have the Prop 65, like, little writing on it telling you that this chemical definitely has chemicals that can cause cancer.

It's also really accessible for a lot of people in that community, you know, like, buying produce, buying snacks, buying stuff to, like, cook with, buying everything there.

But again, it's, like, the damage that these products are really doing to the people.

I even have a surveillance camera in it, and just like all the bargain stores in my neighborhood, they all have crazy amount of surveillance.

And, like, why would this, like--like place--like, bargain store really have, like, all these cameras when really everything is, like, a dollar?

And it's more of, like, you know, sort of like surveilling, like, people in that community.

I have, like, the rat trap.

But, you know, thinking about, like, it's really a trap for us.

And it's as very easy to get and I just feel like easy to kill.

All those products are very easy for us to get sick, and, you know, it's just like this cycle.

It keeps going.

♪ Performance is a way for me to sort of get closure in that, like, therapy in a way.

I speak about my fears, my longings, my desires in performance.

♪ I got asked to do this performance for this opening of Womanhouse.

They were just like, oh, we really want you to do these performances, like, durational pieces of you.

So I kind of spoke on sort of like a suppressive side as, like, a Brown woman and as a queer woman.

It was a sort of like making fun of, like, what we're called, like, the slur, we're called, like tortilleras or, like, marimachos.

You know, or all that stuff.

♪ A tortillera is a person who makes tortillas by hand.

For, you know, the slur for lesbian, a queer woman, you call them tortilleras because they use their hands.

And for that, you know, when you're having intercourse, like, you know, you're using your hands.

But I mean, everyone uses their hands.

It's just funny.

I don't know.

But then my friends were just, like, concerned when I was, like, laying down and I use, like, my hands to flip the tortillas.

I mean, I know--like, I don't mind getting burned or anything.

And I remember my friend Marisa was like, [gasps].

She gasped, and I was like, "OK, it's not that bad."

I just flipped tortillas.

She was like, "You were going to burn your hair."

And I was like, "I don't think so."

Also, if you burn your hair, you know, just like tap it, and that's it.

I feel like I didn't really grow up in, like, a stable environment.

I think I always grew up, like, on edge.

I was always, like, really aware of my surroundings, just, like, being super aware of my surroundings.

My mom was, like, away a lot of the times because she had to work.

I just felt lonely a lot of the times.

I think that also explains why, like, I kind of like disassociated as a kid a lot.

Like, I was just always like in, like--in the fantasy and just, like, thinking of, like, oh, just, like, make these, like, things up.

Like, oh, like, just dream about, like, the house that I would have as an older--like, as an adult.

I'm like, I can't wait to have a house.

And I would, like, sit there for hours and imagine, like, OK, so my bedroom is going to be purple, my kitchen's going to be, like, red.

I feel like the idea of my first solo show I did was, like, all, like, self-made.

And the whole concept of it too was these rooms all different colors in this house.

You know, it was sort of like this, like, thing that I kept manifesting as a little--as a little kid.

[Gabriela speaking Spanish] Gabriela: OK, 1, 2.

Man: So there's two ones and two twos.

Gabriela: OK, so--oh, yeah, I see.

Israel: Most of the rooms are two, because everything's gonna be open.

That's a two.

That's a two.

Everything that is closed like this, like a "v" shape, is gonna be ones.

So this is 1, 2, 3, 4.

The rest of this are number two.

This is one-- Gabriela: OK, so then.

4--4 number ones.

And then 12 number twos.

So we're at the Palm Springs Museum in Palm Springs, California, and I'm working on an installation for my solo show here that opens August 6th.

My parents, actually, are handymen, both of them.

And I just, like, you know, I really like their work ethic.

I feel like I take on that.

Like, you know, we just know how to, like, work really well and, like, really efficiently and, you know, just I like that.

And I'm building a maze right now.

In the process of building the maze.

It is just, like, navigating the mixed spaces.

I'm thinking about, like, thinking--kind of like my head feels sometimes, like, getting from point "a" and point "b," how difficult sometimes it is.

Just like, I'm like, thinking mainly, like, anxiety attacks or just, like, things my body does to me.

But it's still, like, you have to get from point "a" to point "b."

And kind of having it be your experience, you know.

Like, in this way of, like, OK, it's a very small maze.

It's like, you know, it's a entrance and exit.

But in the meantime, you're going to be, like, distracted by sounds, visuals.

And it's going to kind of like this is sort of disorienting, you know?

Like, where do you find--how do you get exit?

And it's--I wanted to sort of escalate it to get that feeling of, like, anxiety in that space.

♪ As, you know, coming in and taking up space, just allows, like, the next generation to be able to take up space as well.

You know, not making it as hard for them.

Sort of like, you know, when they say that, you know, first generation children always suffer the most because they're sort of trying to find themselves.

And that the second and third generation will be a lot easier.

I hope you continue to stay in conversation about taking space and just, like, think of how the work can live after me.

I guess I'm just like also really--I'm just a really anxious person, and I'm, like, a hypochondriac.

It is really funny because even though I acknowledge, like, I'm such a hypochondriac and stuff, like, I work a lot with, like, really toxic materials.

And, like, statistically, I know that there's a high chance of me getting cancer in the future or something.

I mean, like, we're all going to die.

And I'm also--I'm like, OK, I'm gonna die.

So like, how do I have these works live after me?

♪ [Man singing in Spanish over radio] Rafa: It's so funny when we talk about identity because when...

I never really questioned, like, who I was.

I think until high school when you start meeting, like, other Brown kids and they ask you, like, "Oh, where you from?"

You automatically understand that they're asking you, like, where your parents are from, right?

And I remember, I would always say, like, "Oh, I'm Mexican."

I never said, like, "I'm Mexican-American.

I'm Latino.

I'm Hispanic."

It was always, like, "I'm Mexican."

I think that's because my folks were, like, proud, like, Mexicans, and they--even though they were, like, immigrants to this country, their customs or culture, their religion, everything pointed back to Mexico.

It's not later until in I'm college that I start to--when I start to interrogate, like, my own relationship to the city and to being a U.S. citizen that I start to articulate my relationship to Mexico.

I think there is a moment where you feel like, oh, I'm not from here, I'm not from there.

That way of thinking feels, like, so devaluing.

But I started to kind of like instead of feeling like I'm missing something from here and I'm missing something from there, I started to understand, like, how much--how lucky I am that I actually have a relationship to Mexico and that I know Los Angeles in this other way.

I think now I know, like, if you're trying to have the conversation, let's have the conversation.

But I'm never gonna just, like, take on-- I'm not going to like lazily take on a label by default and say, "Oh, yeah, I'm Latinx" or "I'm Mexican-American" or "I'm Chicano" or "I'm Hispanic."

Like, those labels are made to make things coherent for people to have a sense of what they're looking at and who you are, right?

You know, my folks are from a very small, rural, like, farming, like, community.

[Speaking Spanish] And I grew up knowing that my father was a brickmaker when he was a kid.

There was, like, a season to plant your crops.

There's a season to harvest.

And then there's, like, gaps between those two seasons, and people traditionally use that time to make bricks.

I have many family members that grew up making adobe bricks.

I asked my father to teach me how to make the bricks, and we weren't talking at the time.

He was having a hard time accepting me being queer, and it just caused a lot of discomfort, not only between us, but also, like, within my family.

♪ But so I used, like, this knowledge that I knew about from his upbringing as a way to engage him, like, in a conversation that I hoped would be healing.

He agreed to teach me how to make the bricks.

Adobe becomes not only this sort of like way of working with land that was able to mend, like, a broken relationship with my father, but also mend my relationship to land.

♪ You know, I think outside of my visit to Mexico, like, my relationship to the city has always been one of not actively engaging with land, right?

Because it's so--like most modern metropolises, they're buried under concrete, right.

And so brown matter that's alive, that is of the land, that carries with it, like, a history of--a fraught history of colonization, forced displacement, slavery, war.

All of these things are embedded in this material, right?

When I'm painting on the adobe, I'm, like, thinking of a history of, like, murals that could date back to, like, the master muralists of Mexico, but also thinking about, like, meals made by the ancient Maya.

And so I'm thinking about, like, their relationship to, like, nature and the cosmos and the browns that they used to, like, color, to, like, represent the bodies of people that they painted.

Relationship between the adobe and the body to be immediate, that people could just say that, like, "Oh, the body is adobe."

["Lowrider" playing] War: ♪ All my friends drive a lowrider ♪ ♪ I grew up in Pasadena, and every year, I remember in the nineties like during--at New Year's Eve, Colorado Boulevard was like, I don't know, 5 miles--like a 5-mile stretch of just lowrider cruisers.

And it's wild because when you think about Pasadena, you think about, like, wealthy white people.

But on New Year's Eve, Colorado Boulevard was all like Black and Brown, and it was, like, lowrider cars, like, bumper to bumper.

Yeah, I kind of saw it as just, like, thing that Mexicans were into.

And so when I think about Chicano culture, the first thing that I think about is, like, the history of organizing and resistance in Los Angeles.

I could sort of like think about the ways in which, through lowrider culture, they are customizing a car, transforming it through, like, a sense of aesthetics that's different from, like, protesting in the streets, right?

But they're still kind of like transforming public space into, like, these places of spectacle that feels very much part of this kind of, like, spirit of resistance that doesn't necessarily manifest with, like, a fist in the air and, like, marching through the streets.

Like, organizing.

Like, organizing ourselves.

They can move through space by literally kind of, like, jumping up and down.

There's something anthropomorphic about the cars that makes me think of, like, a Chicano cyborg.

The ways that these cars are moving are so animal-like, right?

And I was thinking about cruising in Los Angeles, but also, like, cruising as a gay man.

And the idea was to take my body as a lowrider car and be photographed in these different sites in Los Angeles that were both sites of lowrider car cruising, but also sites of gay cruising in Los Angeles.

And so that's where the conversation around, like, biomimicry and a history of anthropology kind of like come in.

[Rattling] And I see them as, like, not only symbols of how culturally people relate to nature, but they're also mnemonic devices that are used to tell stories.

All of these bedded metaphorically in the ways that, like, anthropomorphism is represented, like, in these glyphs.

Looking at the bird to be able to design something that I could fly in as opposed to, like, looking at a bird and trying to understand, like, why the bird does what it does so that I could respect it, right?

But I want to approach this transformation of becoming a lowrider car through the sort of, like, ancient indigenous perspective of becoming less human, right?

♪ Woman: I'm not looking at ancient times as the past.

I'm looking at the past in a more rhizomatic way as something that continues to be alive.

And I am seeking to celebrate ancient peoples' knowledges.

But also because I want to imagine that indigenous people survive at the end and that there's some way in which the future is not completely colonial.

My work is a conversation about different temporalities trying to form communities with others who are not here by being able to move across time.

It's a way to also imagine that we'll be able to have conversations with people who we will never meet and with people who will be born after I'm dead, and that there's a different way of warping time if you understand the world like that.

♪ My two pieces here, part of one single exhibition called "Cosmic Portals."

But one of them, "El Caracol," is inviting us to look up.

And the other one, "Cosmic Mirror: the Sky Over Los Angeles" is inviting the cosmos to look down at us.

"Cosmic Mirrors," those stones over the landscape, enters in conversation with works that the Olmec, who are the elder of the communities of indigenous peoples that have left physical works for us to look at today.

The Olmec in the site of La Venta about 2,900 years ago made--built mosaics made of huge stones, sometimes laid out on the landscape for the cosmos.

And those constructions and those--the layout of these rocks forces us to step outside our human perspective and to do this abstract work of imagining being above, imagining looking down from the sky, imagining that this layout of rocks creates these shapes.

The "Caracol," this observatory that has no dome covering it.

This piece is also about the experience of looking at the sky as a way to experience, like, a time machine or this magical way of going to the same landscape as our loved ones who are not here because we are divided by borders.

I come from Central America, and Central American peoples don't have a route for legalization and our families are divided and our children are in detention centers.

And many of my works are about trying to find ways to engage with this speculative dimension of our love.

It's a landscape that can allow us to cross time and to cross space and form communities where we can imagine all of us looking at the same constellation at the same time.

♪ There are many moments when I have thought that living in Los Angeles today and now is magical where so many of us have ended up here coming from so many different places.

And those are also my contemporaries, but I think that it's really important to not believe in chronologies.

And so for me, our contemporaries are the ones that have--that share your ideas and that share your perspectives.

And I think there's something really beautiful about seeing ancient peoples as your contemporaries and not being tied by time and space, because time and space is something that's also linked to visas and documents and borders.

And I don't want my contemporaries to be defined by a border.

♪ [Singing in Spanish] ♪ Announcer: This program was made possible in part by a grant from Anne Ray Foundation, a Margaret A. Cargill philanthropy; the Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture; the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; the Frieda Berlinski Foundation; and the National Endowment for the Arts, on the web at arts.gov.