LACMA × Snapchat: Monumental Perspectives

LACMA × Snapchat: Monumental Perspectives

This new initiative uses augmented reality to explore monuments and murals, representation, and history. Monumental Perspectives brings together artists and technologists to create virtual monuments that explore just some of the histories of Los Angeles communities in an effort to highlight perspectives from across the region. In consultation with community leaders and historians, the first cohort of artists, Mercedes Dorame, I.R. Bach, Glenn Kaino, Ruben Ochoa, and Ada Pinkston, examine key moments, figures, and monumentality in the region’s past and present through augmented reality experiences.

Visitors can experience the augmented reality monuments at site-specific locations across Los Angeles including LACMA’s Wilshire Boulevard campus, MacArthur Park, Earvin “Magic” Johnson Park, and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The monuments can also be experienced by anyone around the world on Snapchat by searching in Lens Explorer or scanning the QR codes below. Read on to learn how to experience the virtual monuments:

There are a total of 13 monuments placed throughout Los Angeles, each activated over several years in series of three collections.
Collection I: All five monuments are listed on this page.
Collection II: Information about three monuments here.
Collection III: Information about five moments here.

This new initiative uses augmented reality to explore monuments and murals, representation, and history. Monumental Perspectives brings together artists and technologists to create virtual monuments that explore just some of the histories of Los Angeles communities in an effort to highlight perspectives from across the region. In consultation with community leaders and historians, the first cohort of artists, Mercedes Dorame, I.R. Bach, Glenn Kaino, Ruben Ochoa, and Ada Pinkston, examine key moments, figures, and monumentality in the region’s past and present through augmented reality experiences.

Visitors can experience the augmented reality monuments at site-specific locations across Los Angeles including LACMA’s Wilshire Boulevard campus, MacArthur Park, Earvin “Magic” Johnson Park, and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The monuments can also be experienced by anyone around the world on Snapchat by searching in Lens Explorer or scanning the QR codes below. Read on to learn how to experience the virtual monuments:

There are a total of 13 monuments placed throughout Los Angeles, each activated over several years in series of three collections.
Collection I: All five monuments are listed on this page.
Collection II: Information about three monuments here.
Collection III: Information about five moments here.

This initiative is made possible by Snapchat. Additional support is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

• Ongoing
• Various locations throughout Los Angeles County via Snapchat
• Today's hours: 10 am–7 pm

• Learn how to use Snapchat

This initiative is made possible by Snapchat. Additional support is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Related Events

Portal for Tovaangar, 2021

Working in landscapes she feels anchored to, Mercedes Dorame reclaims connection to the land and ancestral knowledge by exploring what it means to exist as a Native inhabitant of contemporary Tovaangar (Los Angeles). Portal for Tovaangar creates an immersive portal that links past, present, and potential future worlds. Viewers engage with what continues to inspire many Native people: the sky, the land, indigenous plant life, celestial bodies, and the infinite ability to connect to these entities and with each other. This work proposes a community healing opportunity, an exploration of truth in understanding Indigenous intrinsic knowledge, and reconciliation. Portal for Tovaangar shifts away from memorializing heroes and singular events to engage the continued and future presence of Native people in this city.

The song included in the piece is inspired by a 1918 wax cylinder recording of Tongva singing: 

Kotiikawooken papaaxiiwo | Red-winged blackbird

Yakeenax nechoova yakenax | Dance with me 

chawaayavet, chawaayavet | With outstretched wings

Portal for Tovaangar may be experienced by downloading Snapchat and scanning the code below.

Composition by Mercedes Dorame and Samuel Kinsella
Lens Creator: Sutu

The Monumental Perspectives Podcast | Through the Portal

Mercedes Dorame reclaims connection to the land and ancestral knowledge by exploring what it means to exist as a Native inhabitant of contemporary Tovaangar (Los Angeles). Inspired by her augmented reality monument Portal for Tovaangar, Mercedes Dorame speaks with Curators, Academics, and Tongva musicians, poets, and artists in a podcast inspired by Mercedes’s augmented reality monument Portal for Tovaangar.

Available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Mercedes Dorame

Mercedes Dorame, born in Los Angeles, California, received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her undergraduate degree from UCLA. She calls on her Tongva ancestry to engage problematics of visibility and ideas of cultural construction. Dorame recently received a Creative Capital Award grant and was honored by UCLA as an outstanding alum of the last 100 years as part of its centennial initiative “UCLA: Our Stories Our Impact.” She is currently visiting faculty at CalArts and has shown her work internationally, including the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. 2018.

Think Big, 2021

I.R. Bach’s approach to what constitutes a monument differs from its conventional definition. A simple action such as moving through the park may turn into an experience worth memorializing. Through larger-than-life animations, a whimsical soundtrack, and a guiding basketball, Think Big crafts an experience designed to inspire self-reflection as you proceed. “The aspiration is to collectively build an invisible monument of thought.” I.R. Bach encourages users to playfully consider the phrase, “See yourself in others and others in you.” Think Big is ideally enjoyed in the park but is available everywhere on a smaller scale with fewer stops. The original soundtrack was composed by the artist and features special guest Dwight Trible.

Think Big may be experienced at Earvin "Magic" Johnson Park or from anywhere by downloading Snapchat and scanning the code below.

Composition by I. R. Bach, with special guest Dwight Trible
Lens Creator: James Hurlbut

The Monumental Perspectives Podcast | A Walk in the Park

A Walk in the Park with I.R. Bach takes you on a walk through the mind of the artist and creator of Think Big, an augmented reality project in Magic Johnson Park that invites us to think of the big questions, arriving at a deeper understanding of what makes us human. A Walk in the Park may be Ideally listened to on-site, accompanying the art piece itself. However, we invite you to experience A Walk in the Park wherever you are.

Available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I.R. Bach

I.R. Bach’s work challenges us to exercise our ability to shift perspectives. He affirms that we can solve problems like violence if we learn to think freely and without bias. His initiative, ThinkEmpathy, has been presented in over 30 cities across three continents and aims to tackle two social behavioral paradoxes: categorical identity, the search for identity based on categories such as skin color or gender, and paradigmatic discourse, which blocks free thought by justifying belief. In 2016 I.R. Bach was a recipient of LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab grant for his project I want to know.

No Finish Line, 2021

No Finish Line centers generational stories from the communities, businesses, and organizations along the 1932 L.A. Olympic marathon route, which started and ended at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. This conceptual project highlights how the stories of daily life come together to make history. A narrative thread connects generations of people, businesses, and organizations along the route. The symbolism of a marathon reminds the viewer that the path of history is long, and that making positive change and building an equitable world requires stamina. The memories of the people and places therefore become perpetual and not forgotten: the path of history is a marathon with no finish line. In 2028, Los Angeles will become the only city in the United States to host the Olympic Games three times, invoking memories of Games past and contributing new narratives to the future. Original music composition created in collaboration with DJ Melo-D of the World Famous Beat Junkies.

No Finish Line may be experienced at Christmas Tree Lane Park (within Exposition Park) near the entrance of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Earvin "Magic" Johnson Park, or from anywhere by downloading Snapchat and scanning the code below.

Composition by Glenn Kaino and DJ Melo-D of the World Famous Beat Junkies
Lens Creator: Michael French

Art Activity

What is the story of your neighborhood? Who gets to tell the story of your neighborhood? Download Glenn Kaino’s No Finish Line art kit and see how you can fit stories together.

Physical art kits will be distributed every weekend in June 2021 through artist Lauren Halsey’s food distribution initiative in South Central Los Angeles.

Glenn Kaino

Glenn Kaino was born in 1972 in Los Angeles. Kaino’s works, often functioning as poetic contradictions, aim to reconcile conflicting ideologies, opposing systems, and strict dichotomies in material and experiential ways. Kaino reconfigures the conditions of distinct cultural spheres into ecologies of making in which seemingly disparate materials and ideas are brought into contact. His studio practice includes sculpture, painting, filmmaking, performance, installation, and large-scale public work. He also operates outside the traditional purview of contemporary art, instigating collaborations with other modes of culture—ranging from tech to music to political organizing.

¡Vendedores, Presente!, 2021

¡Vendedores, Presente! responds to L.A.’s complex history with street vendors. Ruben Ochoa draws from his family history—his mother pioneered a mobile tortilla delivery system in San Diego County—to pay homage to the critical role of street vendors in L.A.’s culture and economy. Referencing familiar forms of street vending, ¡Vendedores, Presente! serves as a multilingual resource for on-the-ground entrepreneurs and a call for advocacy. After a decade-long fight to legalize street vending in L.A., the pandemic has impacted its progress and potential growth, with many street vendors left more vulnerable than ever. ¡Vendedores, Presente! invites participants to learn more about the plight of street vendors and provides options to assist through non-profit organizations Community Power Collective (CPC) and Inclusive Action for the City.

¡Vendedores, Presente! may be experienced at MacArthur Park or from anywhere by downloading Snapchat and scanning the code below.

In partnership with Snap, and Lens Creator: Sallia Goldstein

Know Your Rights: A Pocket Guide for Sidewalk Vendors

City of Los Angeles Sidewalk & Park Vendor Permit Program

City of Los Angeles General Rules and Regulations 

Ruben Ochoa

Ruben Ochoa is a Los Angeles–based artist whose practice engages space as both a concept and form. Sourcing from construction materials associated with inherent histories, Ochoa’s works expose the ideological and broader sociopolitical and economic relationships that facilitate how the spaces we inhabit and move through are assembled. His work has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2019, Ochoa completed Mis Marcadores, his first public art commission located at the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry for the GSA Art in Architecture program. He’s the recipient of California Community Foundation Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 2021 COLA Fellowship Award.

The Open Hand is Blessed, 2021

“If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in. The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives.” — Biddy Mason (1818–1891)

The Open Hand is Blessed is a memorial series that pays tribute to the voice and spiritual philosophy of Biddy Mason. The story of Mason is one of resilience. In 1851, Mason arrived in San Bernardino, California, after traveling thousands of miles by foot as an enslaved person. After this arduous journey, she settled in Los Angeles and worked as a nurse and midwife. She died a free person and one of the wealthiest Black women in the country. In The Open Hand is Blessed, Ada Pinkston draws from archival images of African American residents in 19th century Los Angeles.

The Open Hand is Blessed may be experienced at Earvin "Magic" Johnson Park or from anywhere by downloading Snapchat and scanning the code below.

Composition by Jamal R. Moore; narration by Dollie McLean. Image: USC Digital Library, California Historical Society Collection
Lens Creators: Charles Hamblen and Sutu

Ada Pinkston

Ada Pinkston is a multimedia artist, educator, and cultural worker based in Baltimore, Maryland. In her ongoing project, Landmarked, she explores monuments and landmarks that are publicly and privately declared sacred. Her work has been mounted in a variety of spaces. She is a recipient of an Andy Warhol Foundation Grit Fund Grant in Visual Arts, administered by The Contemporary, and a Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Ruby's Project Grant in Visual Arts. A graduate of Wesleyan University (BA) and Maryland Institute College of Art (MFA), she was a part of the second cohort of fellows at Halcyon Arts Lab and is currently a Monument Lab transnational fellow.