Sandra De La Loza, a Short Introduction

Thursday was a busy day, beginning with my trip to Suzanne's then my interview with Sandra De La Loza. I met Sandra in the garden behind her house. I felt as if I had entered a fantasy world, my urban reality flipped amongst rows of corn and flowers. She sat on a wooden bench waiting for me, under a tent offering shade from the hot LA sun. Our conversation began with me asking about her background.

Sandra was born and raised in Los Angeles during a time of great urban change, and discrimination. Growing up in a working class, Mexican American family, Sandra was interested in finding a way to connect. The path that led her to art was becoming socially aware through her education. She went to school at UC Berkley during a pivotal moment in LA history. At this point, she had a strong desire to create change and to foster a language to do so.  So she began writing. When I asked her about who it was for, she told me she was looking towards home, writing to her neighbors, the people she grew up with.  She aspired to create new forms of language as a De-colonization process.  She explained that traditional forms could perpetuate colonialism, so she chose to question and invent forms for herself.

Also in college she was introduced to women of color feminism, which largely revolved around cultural production and complicating politics. I found that this was extremely interesting, because many of the women who I have been looking at, were introduced to the white feminism movement. When she got back to LA, three weeks after the riots in 92', she became very active in art and community based spaces. Through a mix of historical research, art, activism, and community organizing based around cultural production, she found the basis for her work.

This form of cultural production was based around the idea of a community empowering itself. Through pirate radio stations, films, workshops, and movements these communities found themselves being represented, having a voice. She described it as an intense and vibrant moment in LA history. Between the amount of activity and the people who were organizing they began to re-imagine, re-name, and politicize themselves.

I learned a lot from my conversation with Sandra. She educated me about cultural production and the importance of internal community building. In addition, I was really excited to learn about her involvement with recognizing forgotten histories especially, because of my own fascination with the subject and my work in archives. Her work largely focuses on these forgotten, or erased histories, and her job is to intervene and bring them to life. At one point, she described herself as a "performative archivist."



This is just a tid-bit from our interview. Sandra was an amazing woman to talk to, full of fascinating insights into public space work. To look at some of her work you should check out the Pocho Research Society (here is another link to the book she just put out about the society)(and here) (this one is really good), October Surprise, and Mural Remix. Here is a good interview as well...These are just a few, but some really amazing projects.