L.A. GATHERS kicks off at BLVD MRKT & NAVEL

A convergence of creative leaders moving the conversation around resources, structures, and equity forward.

Los Angeles Performance Practice is proud to introduce its newest field initiative, L.A. GATHERS. Spearheaded by interdependent consultant, Leslie Tamaribuchi, this gathering builds power for Los Angeles arts leaders and culture bearers who place their gifts in service of equity and social transformation by actively investing in communities who are most vulnerable through historic and system oppression to control their own assets and build a much needed restorative cultural economy.

This gathering is inspired by the Solidarity Not Charity: Arts and Culture Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy report. Solidarity Economy is used internationally to describe sustainable and equitable community-control of work, food, housing, and culture using diversified organizational forms. The Solidarity Economy principles include cooperation, participatory democracy, intersectional equity, sustainability, and pluralism. Each participant’s work was actively moving towards realizing various tenets of the Solidarity Economy in their established working practices. 

A cohort of individuals that serve a range of artistic communities across the L.A. region joined us for two days of guided conversation and idea generation. Participants included Alison De La Cruz, Anu Yadav, Bruce A. Lemon Jr, Cesia Domínguez López, Donna Simone Johnson, Edgar Miramontes, Gabriel Enamorado, Jorge Gomez, Kai Hazelwood, Kelly Caballero, Michael Holt, Nijeul X, Ricardo Miranda, Shannon Scrofano, Miranda Wright, Patricia Garza, Marsian DeLellis, and Ximón Wood.

L.A. GATHERS commenced for its first day at Montebello’s BLVD MRKT, where founder Barney Santos detailed his journey to opening the community-driven container yard food hall that aims to support both established and emerging local businesses. In Santos’ words, BLVD MRKT utilizes entrepreneurship, creative placemaking, and artisan food as a catalyst for economic development and community revitalization.

Day 2 took place at NAVEL in downtown Los Angeles, a worker self-directed non-profit with the long term vision of divesting from the non-profit industrial complex. Much of the conversations generated around the table on day 2 spoke to the funding and organizational structures many artistic leaders are familiar with, as well as their limitations. Michael Holt and Cesia Domínguez López of NAVEL and Gilda Haas of the LA Co-Op Lab presented on developing models of organizational structure to spur ideas around founding an artistic enterprise outside of the non-profit blueprint.

At the end of our gathering, participants of L.A. GATHERS and Los Angeles Performance Practice will continue the conversation to jointly determine applications of the ideas generated. Stay tuned for what comes next from this confluence of arts and cultural leadership.

L.A. GATHERS was made possible by a generous donation from Trout Lily.