From 2018 to 2020, I worked with the ACLU of Southern California staff to design and implement an artist residency.

Spanning the facade of the Los Angeles offices of the ACLU of Southern California, and facing the offices of the Los Angeles Police Protective League,  the mural The Care We Create (2020), designed by artist-in-residence Audrey Chan, is a testament to the power of coming together to fight for community healing and social justice.

The lush scene of life, healing and solidarity is a response to a pandemic that has exposed the inequities embedded in our society and prompts the essential questions:

What do we dare to create? How do we care for our communities? How can we work together to build structures that ensure enduring support, access and justice for all?

In exploring these questions, the mural lifts up Southern Californians – past and present – who have fought or continue to fight for a better tomorrow by exercising their First Amendment rights, challenging unjust systems of policing and abuses of state power, and demanding dignity and respect for the rights of Black and brown people, immigrants, people unhoused, the LGBTQ+ community and youth. Some also include their family members, who inspire and support them.

This is what community looks like. Learn more about them.

Fabrication by the Los Angeles Art Collective and the Wilson Cetina Group. Photos by Elon Schoenholz.