Por El Río; Community Building Day

Work alongside the artists of Por El Río to co-build complementary structures that extend the installation. This workshop series is an opportunity to learn about the various processes, techniques, and themes found in the project, and contribute to a public artwork. Due to limited capacity, RSVPs will be required.

Sunday, October 27, 2024
2:00-5:00 PM
Los Angeles State Historic Park

Artists Christopher Suarez and Carlos Agredano invite you to partake in the material labors and land histories that informed Por El Rio in the first installment of the series. Two groups will alternate between a two-part workshop led by each artist. Christopher Suarez will demonstrate rammed earth building techniques, guiding participants through the steps of compacting soil and raw materials into a formwork. The octagonal forms are modeled after the pillars that uphold freeway overpasses, projecting an imaginary of hostile architectures in progressive stages of ruin and unmaking. Concurrently in Chinatown, alongside the divisional throughways of the 110 Freeway, a walking tour led by Carlos Agredano will traverse the compounding operations of environmental racism and urban planning, meanwhile accumulating detritus to be transformed into a sculptural object.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Christopher Suarez (b. 1994) is an artist born, raised, and based in Long Beach, CA. Foundational to Suarez’s work are examinations of his personal and familial memories of home, the histories of place, and the ways they are lived vis-à-vis built environments. He employs clay and mixed media sculptures to simultaneously celebrate immigrant working-class communities' aesthetic and cultural identities and to reveal their precarious state. Suarez’s work has been exhibited at the Art, Design, and Architecture Museum; Jeffrey Deitch Gallery; Sebastian Gladstone Gallery; and Stanley’s Gallery. Suarez was included in Made in LA 2023: Acts of Living at the Hammer Museum. Christopher Suarez received a BFA in Ceramic Arts from California State University, Long Beach.

Carlos Agredano (b. 1998 Los Angeles, CA) is an artist from Southeast Los Angeles. He uses readymade and process-based artworks to record and reveal environmental racism, such as paintings documenting the cumulative buildup of pollutants and smog on surfaces or found objects such as dust-caked window air conditioners. In his research practice, Agredano interrogates how policies like redlining and private racially restrictive covenants enabled freeway construction and manufactured air pollution disparities in racially diverse, low-income neighborhoods. Agredano has exhibited at Human Resources, François Ghebaly, and SculptureCenter. He holds a BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.  

ARRIVAL

Arrival: Los Angeles State Historic Park is located at 1245 N Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90012, directly adjacent to Chinatown and the Metro Gold Line. The reception will take place to the west of the Roundhouse Bridge in the center of the main lawn. The park is located just 1 mile away from Los Angeles Union Station, making it accessible from several Metro routes. We highly recommend using public transportation, rideshare, biking, or carpooling.

Parking options: There is paid parking at 1501 N Spring Street, the main parking lot of the park, at $2/hour, up to $8 daily. The park will open the dirt overflow parking lot directly in front of the orchard, located at 1315 N Spring Street, which is free and first come, first served. There is also free street parking around the park. Please avoid parking near residential homes on the east side of Main Street and give yourself plenty of time to park and walk over!

Restrooms: There are several all-gender public restrooms and portapotties on site. 

SUPPORT
Por El Río was commissioned by Clockshop and supported through our long-standing partnership with California State Parks. The production of this work was generously supported by the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, the Angeles Art Fund, and ARLA, with additional support from Los Angeles Department of Arts and Culture and Clockshop’s generous community of supporters.