Stories Flow Through the Heart of Los Angeles
Poster design, story map, temporary public artwork and t-shirt design
2024
Stories Flow Through the Heart of Los Angeles was a collaboration with CicLAvia that featured an illustrated interactive story map (in English, Spanish, and Chinese) inspired by community stories embedded within the Heart of Los Angeles corridor. Throughout the route, participants encountered signs featuring neighborhood histories and scanned QR codes to learn more about some of the people, places, and struggles that flow through Los Angeles’ history and recent past.
Special thanks to Colleen Corcoran and Alex Merlino
Storymap
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STOP 1 – ECHO PARK HUB
The Magonistas sowed the seeds of the Mexican Revolution from their radical anarchist printing press in Edendale. -
STOP 2 – CHINATOWN HUB
The Chinatown Yards Alliance organized neighbors to create the LA State Historic Park, saving the land from commercial development. -
STOP 3 – YAANGA VILLAGE
A magnificent sycamore tree stood for 400 years at the heart of Yaanga, one of the largest Tongva villages in Tovaangar. -
STOP 4 – BIDDY MASON
Biddy Mason, nurse, midwife, real estate entrepreneur, philanthropist, and church co-founder, built her homestead on Spring Street. -
STOP 5 – LITTLE MANILA
Filipino migrants formed a thriving Little Manila in the 1920s and 1930s, living and working around 1st Street and Main Street. -
STOP 6 – BRONZEVILLE
Jazz played at breakfast clubs in Bronzeville, a neighborhood borne out of the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans and Los Angeles’ restrictive housing covenants. -
STOP 7 – “HOME IS LITTLE TOKYO” MURAL
500 volunteers joined artists Jorge and Sergio Diaz, Tony Osumi, and activist Nancy Kikuchi to create the “Home is Little Tokyo” mural. -
STOP 8 – SKID ROW/GENERAL JEFF
Activist General Jeff, known as the “Mayor of Skid Row,” fought for the community’s well-being and political representation. -
STOP 9 – MARIACHI PLAZA HUB
Mariachis would serenade passersby by a doughnut stand at First Street and Boyle Avenue, where a stone kiosk stands today. -
STOP 10 – EVERGREEN CEMETERY HUB
Chinese residents excluded from Evergreen Cemetery’s marked burial plots built a shrine to make funerary offerings to their deceased.
Poster
