I always forget to check the SoCal Studio’s MySpace page to find out what’s happening down there, which is how I didn’t find out about Saturday’s Chinatown Walk in time. However, they are running the Los Angeles Women exhibit through May. They’re in Chinatown, at 525 Alpine Street, Suite 103, 90012, and are open Saturdays if you want to go visit. I’m definitely going to check this out as soon as I get back to L.A. next week.
Inspired by the countless women who have shaped and continue to make local history, Los Angeles Women: A Record of Experience celebrates women who have made a difference in the history of Southern California through hard fought struggle, innovation, and compassion for her fellow human beings.
Los Angeles Women profiles activists and pioneers who challenged the status quo in order to bring social justice or appreciation of the world around her. This exhibit borrows photographs and video from local and national archives as well as oral histories from the Studio’s collection to illustrate the powerful and often under-acknowledged sphere of women’s history.
Los Angeles Women features a 30′ Community Quilt composed of blocks created by local residents. Each block represents a significant contribution to local women’s history. In addition to traditional blocks, the Community Quilt includes multimedia blocks that integrate the Studio’s oral history collection.
The Studio for Southern California History is intended to be a participatory space and there are ways for visitors to write their own personal history or other items into our Timeline that includes global, national, state, & local women’s history.
Los Angeles Women celebrates the 35 th anniversary of the 1972 art installation Womanhouse ; through an Interactive Doll House that asks viewers the same sorts of questions artists grappled with in the piece’s original incarnation. Have issues changed for girls and women today? What would 2007’s Womanhouse express?
Women Profiled:
Ethel Percy Andrus
(1884 -1967) educator
Modesta Avila
(1867 – 1891) farmer
Charlotta Amanda Bass
(1874 – 1969) newspaper publisher
Karen Boccalero
(1933 – 1997) artist
Lucia Capacchione
(1935 – ) art therapist
Aurora Castillo
(c. 1901 – 1998) environmentalist
Mayme A. Clayton
(1923 – 2006) preservationist
Helen Gahagan Douglas
(1900 – 1980) actor & politician
Jackie Goldberg
(1937 – ) educator & politician
Frances Kazuko Hashimoto
(1945 – ) entrepreneur
Dorothy Ray Healey
(1914 – 2006) labor organizer
Minerva Hoyt
(1866 – 1945) preservationist
Mary Corita Kent
(1918 – 1986) artist
Louise Leung Larson
(1905 – 1988) journalist
Aimee Semple McPherson
(1890 – 1944) evangelist
Bridget “Biddy” Mason
(1818 – 1891) midwife
Olive Percival
(1868 – 1945) writer & book collector
Carolyn Severance
(1820 – 1914) suffragist
Iva Ikuko Toguri
(1916 – 2006) patriot
Toypurina
(1761 – 1799) Tongva shaman
& many others!
This exhibit will run from January 13 – May 31, 2007. On May 19, 2007 the Studio will host a Story Symposium in conjunction with this exhibit.