Clockshop: Recent Episodes
Clockshop
Clockshop is an arts and culture organization that seeks to generate social change through the transformation of public space.
The closing of ‘Songs of Emerging Endangerment’ featured a dynamic panel conversation with scholars and artists who study the histories and cultures of the Asian Pacific diaspora.‘Songs of Emerging Endangerment’ is an installation by TJ Shin an artist born in South Korea who now lives in Los Angeles. TJ explores how power shapes our lives and experiences, using sound and sculpture to explore their ideas.This installation emits sound from an air raid siren, a tool once used across LA to warn the city about incoming danger. Every hour, it plays recordings of people imitating the calls of birds that migrate through the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, a path that crosses East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.The participants in the project are people with connections to the regions where these birds live and travel. LA County is home to 1.5 million people with roots in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Sharing imitated birdcalls through this siren is a way to invite listeners—like you!—to reflect on movement, memories, and meaning across time and distances. Learn more here: https://clockshop.org/project/song-of-emerging-endangerment/
To celebrate National Poetry Month, we hosted 'Reading by Moonrise' curated by Ivanna Baranova, Co-Director of the Poetic Research Bureau. ReadersWill AlexanderKayla Ephros jimmy vega Sarah Yanni
On February 9, 2025 a crowd assembled around the conglomeration of sculptures that comprise 'Por El Río,' some reclining against one benches’ concrete curvatures and others in the cast shadows of towering chainlink. Their attention was directed toward artists Christopher Suarez and Carlos Agredano, who were brought into conversation with Clockshop’s Director of Artistic Projects, cat yang, to discuss how their practices evolved over the course of this project. Suarez, seated on his own structure of compacted earth, reflected on his choice to collaborate with those who had been instrumental in his development as an artist and how, over the course of intense cross-pollination, conversation, and the co-facilitation of a series of community workshops, these ties had strengthened immeasurably.
On Saturday, February 1, 2025 Clockshop hosted a special SOLD-OUT ‘Reading By Moonrise’ with Little Flower Cafe and Octavia’s Bookshelf featuring writers and artists with a direct connection to the Altadena Public Libraries. Featuring:Empress Of York ChangAyasha GuerinMaryam Hosseinzadeh Lester Graves LennonSesshu FosterLynne Thompson Sehba Sarwar100% of donations from this event directly supported the Altadena Library Foundation and LA County Library Foundation’s LA Wildfires Connected Wellness Campaign.
In a 30-minute binaural audio experience, Rosten Woo activates the Glendale Narrows channel as an aperture to situate visitors within the hydrological networks of the greater Los Angeles Basin, one of the city’s most misunderstood and complex infrastructural systems.
In a 30-minute binaural audio experience, Rosten Woo activates the Glendale Narrows channel as an aperture to situate visitors within the hydrological networks of the greater Los Angeles Basin, one of the city’s most misunderstood and complex infrastructural systems.
Preview 'What Water Wants' and join us for the full experience. Learn more here: https://clockshop.org/project/what-water-wants/In a 30-minute binaural audio experience, Rosten Woo activates the Glendale Narrows channel as an aperture to situate visitors within the hydrological networks of the greater Los Angeles Basin, one of the city’s most misunderstood and complex infrastructural systems. The audio tour moves between a guided meditation and speculative disaster horror, evoking multiple perspectives of the river’s history and future.
On Saturday, February 24 2024, artist Rodrigo Valenzuela led a walk-through of 'the underpinning,' where he and attendees cultivated a bilingual dialogue, reflecting on the ways we relate to our built environments. Valenzuela explored the shared and divergent histories of government housing in Chile and the architectures of public housing in Los Angeles, and how each are distilled into the form of the installation to evoke possibility and resist a delimited conception of home.
'What Water Wants' is designed to foster group learning in preparation for a long-term artwork by Rosten Woo at the Bowtie parcel along the Los Angeles river with The Nature Conservancy. The Bowtie parcel is owned by California State Parks and will include a 3-acre wetland demonstration project breaking ground later this year. This series will take us to rarely seen sites of water treatment, water modeling, and habitat creation in the company of scientists, policymakers, water scholars, and holders of cultural knowledge.'What Water Wants' Tour 1 met at Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Preserve with guest speakers Jessica Henson, Mark Hanna, and Miguel Luna.Jessica Henson grew up playing in the creeks that lead to the Mississippi River, but her path to becoming the landscape architect she is now was an unlikely one. Her passion for creativity, design, and “a little bit of math” came together in high school when she declared to her parents that she would become an architect. She tried out a two-week architecture program and never looked back, going to architecture school and now landing work on Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan. She hopes the plan will engage the community, let natural habitats flourish, increase flood capacities, and more.Mark Hanna is a 5th generation Californian who grew up in a river town in the northern part of the state. Coming from a hardcore NorCal family who hated LA, Hanna swallowed his pride and entered a graduate program at UCLA in 1998. To his surprise, he fell in love with the city “within hours.” After graduating he got a job with the LADWP directing the restoration program of the Mono Basin up in the Eastern Sierras, where the LA Aqueduct brings water to the city. Since then, he has made his way down the river and is currently working for the city of Los Angeles on the Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan.Miguel Luna is a climate activist who has felt a connection to rivers since he was a child in Colombia. He calls them his kin, and they are why he says he’s “giving back to what’s given me so much.” Miguel is now on the Metropolitan Water Board of Southern California, where he makes decisions to educate youth about the importance of water and connect adults to “memories that they had in their countries of origin.”
'What Water Wants' is designed to foster group learning in preparation for a long-term artwork by Rosten Woo at the Bowtie parcel along the Los Angeles river with The Nature Conservancy. The Bowtie parcel is owned by California State Parks and will include a 3-acre wetland demonstration project breaking ground later this year. This series will take us to rarely seen sites of water treatment, water modeling, and habitat creation in the company of scientists, policymakers, water scholars, and holders of cultural knowledge.'What Water Wants' Tour 1 met at Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Preserve with guest speakers Jessica Henson, Mark Hanna, and Miguel Luna.Jessica Henson grew up playing in the creeks that lead to the Mississippi River, but her path to becoming the landscape architect she is now was an unlikely one. Her passion for creativity, design, and “a little bit of math” came together in high school when she declared to her parents that she would become an architect. She tried out a two-week architecture program and never looked back, going to architecture school and now landing work on Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan. She hopes the plan will engage the community, let natural habitats flourish, increase flood capacities, and more.Mark Hanna is a 5th generation Californian who grew up in a river town in the northern part of the state. Coming from a hardcore NorCal family who hated LA, Hanna swallowed his pride and entered a graduate program at UCLA in 1998. To his surprise, he fell in love with the city “within hours.” After graduating he got a job with the LADWP directing the restoration program of the Mono Basin up in the Eastern Sierras, where the LA Aqueduct brings water to the city. Since then, he has made his way down the river and is currently working for the city of Los Angeles on the Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan.Miguel Luna is a climate activist who has felt a connection to rivers since he was a child in Colombia. He calls them his kin, and they are why he says he’s “giving back to what’s given me so much.” Miguel is now on the Metropolitan Water Board of Southern California, where he makes decisions to educate youth about the importance of water and connect adults to “memories that they had in their countries of origin.”
'What Water Wants' is designed to foster group learning in preparation for a long-term artwork by Rosten Woo at the Bowtie parcel along the Los Angeles river with The Nature Conservancy. The Bowtie parcel is owned by California State Parks and will include a 3-acre wetland demonstration project breaking ground later this year. This series will take us to rarely seen sites of water treatment, water modeling, and habitat creation in the company of scientists, policymakers, water scholars, and holders of cultural knowledge.'What Water Wants' Tour 1 met at Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Preserve with guest speakers Jessica Henson, Mark Hanna, and Miguel Luna.Jessica Henson grew up playing in the creeks that lead to the Mississippi River, but her path to becoming the landscape architect she is now was an unlikely one. Her passion for creativity, design, and “a little bit of math” came together in high school when she declared to her parents that she would become an architect. She tried out a two-week architecture program and never looked back, going to architecture school and now landing work on Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan. She hopes the plan will engage the community, let natural habitats flourish, increase flood capacities, and more.Mark Hanna is a 5th generation Californian who grew up in a river town in the northern part of the state. Coming from a hardcore NorCal family who hated LA, Hanna swallowed his pride and entered a graduate program at UCLA in 1998. To his surprise, he fell in love with the city “within hours.” After graduating he got a job with the LADWP directing the restoration program of the Mono Basin up in the Eastern Sierras, where the LA Aqueduct brings water to the city. Since then, he has made his way down the river and is currently working for the city of Los Angeles on the Sepulveda Basin Vision Plan.Miguel Luna is a climate activist who has felt a connection to rivers since he was a child in Colombia. He calls them his kin, and they are why he says he’s “giving back to what’s given me so much.” Miguel is now on the Metropolitan Water Board of Southern California, where he makes decisions to educate youth about the importance of water and connect adults to “memories that they had in their countries of origin.”
In January 2024, park-goers joined Theresa Hwang, Molly Rysman, and Sissy Trinh in an illuminating conversation that activated the site of Rodrigo Valenzuela’s installation, 'the underpinning,' in Los Angeles State Historic Park through an exploration of urban planning grounded in the legacies of Chinatown and the surrounding neighborhoods. The speakers delved into the current landscape of housing in Los Angeles, drawing connections between systems of power and harm, the segregationist histories of land use, and the negotiations made by communities and policymakers when envisioning cultural infrastructures that reflect the identity and center the wellbeing of residents.
On Sunday, September 24, Clockshop transformed into a gallery with various entry points to learn about the stories included so far. Guests watched documentaries, read storyboards, and joined the story circle to listen. Ruth Coleman, Ceci Dominguez, Ruben Molina and Yancey Quinones spoke about the Northeast LA they know, offering personal artifacts to help us explore the region’s history: photographs of a 1984 little league team, a map of Palo Verde, Elysian Valley in the 1960s, and an initial plan for the site of Rio de Los Angeles State Park.Explore 'Take Me to Your River' here: https://takemetoyourriver.org/
TMTYR: David talks about neighborhood dangers and relationships in the 1980s by Clockshop
TMTYR: Samantha talks about human relationships to nature from a radical youth perspective by Clockshop
Clockshop’s series ‘Dreaming Land Back into Reality,’ featured conversations with individuals shaping the LandBack Movement. Expanding on the first part of our series on Indigenous stewardship models, we move to unpack the synergistic alliances by Black advocates working to heal the generational historic harms of settler colonialism. This second installment will examine the dispossession of land from the Bruce family of Bruce’s Beach and other Black Californians, from seizures through eminent domain to racist housing practices like redlining and racial covenants, and imagine the contemporary conditions that make reparations and land return attainable.This conversation features April Banks, artist and creative strategist; George Fatheree III, a real estate attorney with Sidley Austin LLP; and Kavon Ward, co-founder of Where Is My Land, the latter two having collaborated on the return of Bruce’s Beach to the Bruce family. The program will be moderated by Theresa Hwang, a community-engaged architect and founder of the Department of Beloved Places. The speakers discussed how law, public policy, community organizing, and art can work together in envisioning and building toward the radicalizing work necessary to support the reality of reparations.Learn more here: https://clockshop.org/project/dreaming-land-back-into-reality/
Clockshop presents a new series 'Dreaming Land Back into Reality,' an exploration of the intersectional movements that work to pave pathways to the return and stewardship models of stolen land. Ahead of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the first conversation in the series featured Victor Bjelajac, District Superintendent in the North Coast Redwood District for California State Parks; Kimberly Morales Johnson, Tribal Secretary of the Gabrieleno / Tongva Tribe; and Rudy Ortega Jr., Tribal President of the Tataviam / Fernandeño Tribe. The program was moderated by Alina Bokde, Chief Deputy Director of the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation. The program speakers shared their experiences in navigating the co-stewardship of stolen land with Indigenous tribes and communities within and beyond colonial systems.
Artist Ignacio Perez Meruane in conversation with historian of the American West, William Deverell, about the cultural, environmental, and social history of the land connected to LASHP and how artworks can function within this historical context. Live event recording.
What's next for the Bowtie? Sean Woods, Stephen Mejia and Kat Superfisky are all actively trying to answer that question. Listen in as they recount past and current battles, as well as ideas for the park's designed future.
In this episode, Rux and Bear share how they uncovered the story of Ryan Coreas, a local teenager whose life is memorialized at one of his favorite places to hang out: the Bowtie.
In this wide ranging conversation about the politics of open space, responsive design, and community engagement, Ruxandra Guidi discusses South of Fletcher: Stories from the Bowtie with Christopher Hawthorne, Chief Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles; Kat Superfisky, Urban Ecologist at Studio-MLA and Executive Director at Grown in LA; and Helen Leung, Co-Executive Director of LA-Más. In this discussion, the panelists will consider the Bowtie and its relationship to the rest of a rapidly-changing Los Angeles.
Recorded live at Clockshop by Chris Votek on October 17, 2018.
The Bowtie is a rare plot of wide open space in a city that's becoming more densely populated by the day. What will happen when the site becomes a park? Who will get to use it?
There's only one way into and out of the Bowtie — through the Pocket. This little section of Atwater Village, sandwiched between Fletcher Drive the 2 freeway, is home to a diverse community with mixed feelings about the soon-to-be-park next door.
How do we thrive in less-than-ideal living conditions? In this episode Rux and Bear talk with CA State Parks certified interpretive specialist Luis Rincon, ecological historian Travis Longcore, and longtime Frogtown/Atwater resident Liz Vega about disturbance at the Bowtie and its surrounding communities.
Back in the '70s, the Bowtie Parcel was a bustling rail depot better known as Taylor Yard; a place where Southern Pacific diesel trains came from throughout Southern California for maintenance and repairs. In this episode, Bob Ramírez & Don Tortorice share what it was like to work at the site.
South of Fletcher: Stories from the Bowtie is a multi-platform storytelling project by Fonografia Collective that will launch this September.
Follow along as we explore the rhythms of this unique site on the brink of major change.
In January 2017, in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, Clockshop launched Counter-Inaugural, a series of talks addressing local and national politics through a cultural lens. A year after the election, we are presenting our last talk in this series.
ACLU Southern California legal director Ahilan Arulanantham, writer and PhD candidate Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, and award-winning filmmaker Alex Rivera joined us for a discussion about immigration and deportation.
Since the 2016 election, artists, curators and arts organizations alike have responded to this presidency with work that seeks to understand (and possibly upend) our current political systems. See: Counter-Inaugural.
What are the stakes of such engagement? What role can art play within politics?
On May 30, 2017, Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale, curators of Made in L.A. 2018, and What, How & for Whom, curators of the 2009 Istanbul Biennial, joined us to discuss Curating Within a Heightened Political Moment.
This conversation was part of WHW's Clockshop residency. Learn more here: https://clockshop.org/project/whw/
On May 9, 2017, Douglas Goodwin introduced specific threats to our electronic privacy, and outlined defensive and offensive actions we can take to mitigate them.
For more information about this event or to view video documentation, visit https://clockshop.org/event/douglas-goodwin/.
On April 4, 2017, Rudy Espinoza, CEO of Leadership for Urban Renewal Network and Dan Flaming, President of the Economic Roundtable joined us to discuss their work and ideas on income inequality.
For more information about this event, visit http://clockshop.org/event/rudy-espinoza-dan-flaming/
Ecologist and professional forager Nance Klehm led a walk at the Bowtie Project exploring the human uses and ecological functions of the native and spontaneous vegetation at the site. On this walk we will investigate how the vegetation relates to the ecology and vitality of the soil that supports it.
Surface Walk is part of Nance Klehm’s Bowtie Project residency titled Double Pairing. Learn more about her residency here: clockshop.org/project/double-pairing/
Learn more about the Bowtie Project at clockshop.org/bowtie.
On March 21, 2017, Timothy Snyder joined us to discuss his new best-selling book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. In this book, Snyder offers readers a guide to identifying and understanding the frightening parallels that exist between our current reality and the realities faced by Europeans of the twentieth century during the Third Reich.
For more information about this event visit http://clockshop.org/event/timothy-snyder-on-tyranny/
On January 31, 2017, Robin D.G. Kelley and Robin Coste Lewis reflected on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” This letter was written in response to a public statement of concern issued by eight white religious leaders of the American South about the civil rights movement’s tactics of nonviolent direct action. Kelley and Lewis reflected on this historic document, and discussed what we can learn now from the resistance strategies King championed.
Suggested Reading & Viewing
Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1963
Beyond Vietnam, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967
I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck, screening January 30, 2017 at the Hammer Museum
This event was part of Clockshop’s Counter-Inaugural, a series of talks addressing the misogyny, hate speech, and climate change denial that dominated the 2016 presidential campaign. It was recorded by Tom Carroll.
Lynda V. Mapes has been reporting on environmental issues for the Seattle Times since 1997 with a specific focus on river health and Native American communities. These points of focus merged in her 2016 coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock. On January 24, 2017, Mapes was joined in conversation by mark! Lopez, executive director of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. Much of Lopez’s organizing takes place in communities adjacent to the southern portion of the Los Angeles River. In this conversation, Mapes and Lopez spoke about what we’ve learned from Standing Rock, and how those lessons relate to LA River revitalization. This event was co-presented with California State Parks and Friends of the Los Angeles River.
Suggested Reading & Listening
Will the Los Angeles River Become a Playground for the Rich? Richard Kreitner, The Nation, March 10, 2016
Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline… ft. Lynda V. Mapes, The Overcast podcast, November 4, 2016
Exposing Injustice at the LA River Christian L. Guzman, Random Lengths News, September 2, 2016
This event was part of Clockshop’s Counter-Inaugural, a series of talks addressing the misogyny, hate speech, and climate change denial that dominated the 2016 presidential campaign. It was recorded by Andrew Kim.
UK journalist Laurie Penny has been covering the 2016 presidential campaign through a feminist lens with dark wit and an eye toward her native country’s alarming Brexit vote last summer. On January 10, 2017, Penny was joined in conversation by Neelanjana Banerjee, managing editor at Kaya Press, to discuss misogyny, sexism and female flesh under capitalism. This event was co-presented with Women’s Center for Creative Work.
Suggested reading:
“Against Bargaining” Laurie Penny, The Baffler, November 18, 2016 “I’m With the Banned” Laurie Penny, Medium, July 21, 2016 “What Women Problem?” Laurie Penny, Medium, July 18, 2016
Clockshop’s Counter-Inaugural is a series of talks addressing the misogyny, hate speech, and climate change denial that dominated the 2016 presidential campaign. This event was recorded by Rounak Maiti.
Ayana A.H. Jamieson is the founder and director of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network. In December 2016, she led a bus tour through Pasadena and Altadena, California, exploring Butler's hometown and the ways its landscapes and politics influenced her worldview. In this episode, Tom Carroll of Tom Explores Los Angeles talks with Jamieson about this tour.
In a city as big as Los Angeles with such a well-documented car culture, we often hear that you need a car in LA. But what can the experience of public transit offer a writer? What about an artist? In this episode, we take a ride from West Hollywood to Downtown with commissioned Radio Imagination artist and LA-native Lauren Halsey. Halsey’s work takes inspiration from her neighborhood in South LA and the visual culture of small businesses throughout Los Angeles. Like Butler, she gets around on public transit, but there was a time when she used to drive...
'Kindred' is Octavia E. Butler’s most popular novel. It was published in 1979 and the seed for it was planted at Pasadena City College, where Butler was a student. This fall, over 2,500 Pasadena City College students will read Butler’s novel as part of their “One Book, One College” initiative. What is it about 'Kindred' - a novel that’s more fantasy than science fiction - that makes it so popular?
Nicole M. Mitchell is a creative flutist, composer, bandleader and educator. In 2008, she released Xenogenesis Suite: A Tribute to Octavia E. Butler, followed by her 2014 release of Intergalactic Beings (Xenogenesis II). Both albums are inspired by the writings of Octavia Butler. On October 27, 2016, Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble will perform songs from both albums at the Huntington Library, featuring new and old collaborators exploring updated interpretations of the themes explored in Butler's work. More info here: https://clockshop.org/event/xenogenesis-suite-a-musical-tribute-to-octavia-e-butler/
Radio Imagination artists Mendi + Keith Obadike and Connie Samaras dive into Octavia E. Butler's archive, gleaning inspiration from her notes to produce new work of their own.
For more information about the Radio Imagination exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts, click here: https://clockshop.org/event/radio-imagination-the-exhibition/
Butler rode the bus for nearly an hour everyday to get to the Central Library downtown—reading, writing and researching. What does her dedication to public libraries tell us about who she was as a writer?
Octavia E. Butler died unexpectedly at 58. After her death, a group of curators and writers have sorted through her papers, working to reveal the writer and thinker we didn't come to know in her lifetime.
How a kitchy sci-fi film became a source of inspiration for Octavia E. Butler and the writers who came after her.
Merrilee Heifetz met Octavia E. Butler as a young agent looking for writers. What followed was 20 years of letters, conversations and insights into someone breaking the borders of fiction.
Writers Tisa Bryant, Lynell George, Robin Coste Lewis, and Fred Moten premiere new works of poetry and creative nonfiction under the stars in the Clockshop courtyard. For these commissions, each writer spent an extended period of time working in the Octavia E. Butler archive at The Huntington Library.
Join us as we use the archives of Octavia E. Butler to examine the work, influence and legacy of the world's most unique voices.