Save Our Art
Save Our Art
By Judy
Baca
An “anti-illegal
immigrant” group, Save Our State, of Ventura County, emboldened by their
recent victory at the removal of a billboard referring to “Los Angeles,
Mexico” is now demanding the removal of the wording on a twelve-year old
monument in Baldwin Park, California, entitled Danzas Indigenas. I was
commissioned to produce this work in 1993 by MTA and the City of Baldwin Park in
collaboration with the Kate Diamond Architectural Group.
The monument consists of a 20 ft arch, 100
ft plaza and 400 ft train platform. Produced with extensive public input, the
monument includes five languages: English, Spanish, Gabrielino, Chumash,
Luiseño and is a layering of indigenous, Spanish and mestizo history, which
is associated with the site.
Included
also are the contemporary voices and diversity that is indicative of
contemporary Baldwin Park. Asked to produce a work that was “mission in
theme” that reflected the majority population of Latinos in the City of
Baldwin Park, and in keeping with my practice as an artist for inclusion of
community members in my design process, I designed this work to include the
“past” and “present” of the region and the voices of
local residents. Of particular interest to me was the sites proximity to the
mission of San Gabriel. The arch in the Plaza is conceived of as a fragment of a
mission arch. Its intention was to become a site of public memory for the people
of Baldwin Park; to make visible their invisible
history.
Local residents sentiments
were included in the “present” side of the monument, with verbatim
quotes sandblasted into the surface of the arch. Local residents of all ages and
ethnic groups were recommended by the arts committee and the city council and
interviewed. They were asked about their hopes for the future of Baldwin
Park.
Additional statements from
community members on the arch – which are not included in the discussion
of the monument by the Save Our State group – include “Use your
brain before you make up your mind”, “not just adults leading but
youth leading too", “a small town feeling”, "when the Indians died
the villages ended” and “the kind of community that people dream of
rich and poor, white, brown, yellow all living together”. These statements
all represent the community’s desires, and are featured prominently in the
work of art.
The work is not a work of
a lone artist working without relationship to the community, but rather a
representation of community sensibilities and sentiment of the time. While
this group has cast the artwork as part of a “Reconquista movement”,
it is in fact neither advocating for the return of California to Mexico, nor
wishing that Anglos had never come to this land. This statement “it was
better before they came”, was deliberately ambiguous. About which
“they” is the anonymous voice speaking? The statement was made
by an Anglo local resident who was speaking about Mexicans. The ambiguity of the
statement was the point, and is designed to say more about the reader than the
speaker – and so it has.
The
quote “this land was Mexican once, was Indian always, and is, and will be
again” is by a critically acclaimed Chicana author, Gloria Anzaldua. On
the Save Our State website, she is referred to as a “dead Chicana
lesbian.” I chose this quote because the mission is one mile from the
Mission San Gabriel, and descendants of the Gabrielinos still live in the
region, making Anzaldua’s text particularly relevant to the increasing
indigenous population. A correct reading of the quote makes it clear that this
is not about Mexican “reconquista”, but about the land returning to
its origins.
This is not a question
only of my rights as an artist to not have my copyright violated, but also a
question of “revisionist history” carved out twelve years after an
extensive democratic public process produced this work. It is the collective
vision of the people of Baldwin Park that is under attack by this Ventura group.
What is most deserving of respect are the voices that are represented in the
monument. Also deserving of respect, are the voices of the ancient indigenous
who say in the first person “memory and will power” is how we retain
the knowledge of our culture.
Our
capacity as a democracy to disagree and to coexist is precisely the point of
this work. No single statement can be seen without the whole, nor can it be
removed without destroying the diversity of Baldwin Park’s voices.
Silencing every voice with which we disagree, especially while taking quotes out
of context, either through ignorance or malice, is profoundly
un-American.
Judith Francisca Baca is
the founder and Artistic Director of SPARC – the Social and Public Art
Resource Center in Venice.
Posted: Wed - June 1, 2005 at 08:44 AM