Transformative Arts Los Angeles 12.18.20

transformative arts is pleased to announce that we have assembled a US team to launch our new initiative LA Local in 5 neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Recognizing the urgent need in communities to build visual language that can be used for the greater good, transformative arts has assembled innovative LA makers and thinkers to work towards global justice through visual literacy one neighborhood at a time.

The new team is comprised of Deb Klowden Mann, formerly of Klowden Mann gallery, as Principal and Chief Financial Officer; artist Monica Nouwens as Principal and Director of Content who will build and manage our archive; and artist and educator June Edmonds, as Principal and Director of Education who brings her expertise to ensure that our programming is both sound and fruitful for our artists and neighborhood participants. transformative arts cofounder jill moniz continues in her role of building cultural content and engagement with artists in LA Local and in the Évora Nau initiative in Portugal.

Like our work in Portugal, the impetus of the LA Local initiative is to reconnect people to imagery that can inform agency, encourage sustainability and engender cultural awareness. Therefore, in LA we are supporting five embedded artists in their communities of Downtown LA, East LA, Hollywood, Inglewood and Mid City. Our artists have dynamic and respected social practices that engage people where they are to create robust collective narratives and foster communal cohesion.

transformative arts launches LA Local today with programming in four of the five neighborhoods beginning immediately. By January 2021 all five hubs will be actively creating opportunities for the embedded artists to engage their public partners through oral history projects, open studios, neighborhood conversations and making activities that include cumulative group works that will be installed in their respective neighborhoods.

While we continue to operate as a non-profit, growing our internal community has necessitated establishing a Los Angeles headquarters. transformative arts can be found at 410 S Spring Street with normal business hours of Monday – Friday 11am – 6pm, open to the public by appointment. Our website is www.transformativenow.org and contains an abundance of information about us, our mission, and the artists we support.

https://transformativenow.org/