Heart of Los Angeles and cityLAB met up in late January at Lafayette Park to conceptualize the interactive public art exhibition that will activate the oral histories documented through their collaborative public humanities project, Markings. The team walked through the park to inspire ideas for the potential shapes, forms, and modalities of MARKINGS’ public art and storytelling strategy. This strategy will involve activating intergenerational oral histories of Indigenous immigrant families living in the Westlake/Pico Union neighborhoods through creative placemaking, art, and public programs in collaboration with LAPL’s Felipe De Neve branch. Collaborating with local artists and designers, the team will work to create the project’s physical public displays and interactive design.
Photos by: Nestor Guerrero (HOLA’s MARKINGS Project Manager & Archivist)
MARKINGS: Inscribing Indigenous Immigrant Oral Histories in Westlake, a Mellon Foundation-supported project, is a site-specific, community-engaged public humanities initiative grounded in an ethos of social justice and arts activism. It focuses on the testimonios (oral histories) of Indigenous immigrant communities, including Maya K’iche’, Maya Q’anjobal, Maya Kaqchikel, Maya Yucateco, Mixes, and Zapotec. The MARKINGS project is envisioned by Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA) and cityLAB-UCLA in collaboration with Casa de la Cultura Maya, Maya Vision, Maqueos Music Academy, Mundo Maya Foundation, Organización Regional de Oaxaca, and the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL).
As Year 2 of the initiative is officially underway, we reflect on the efforts of Year 1, which was focused on building relationships with families and individuals throughout Westlake, and gathering intergenerational family stories and building a holistic narrative of the neighborhood’s community. In addition to continuing to expand the oral history collection, all of which have been recorded at HOLA’s Arts & Recreation Center.
The MARKINGS team came together to exchange potential ideas on what form / approach the MARKINGS exhibition will take by the culmination of the event in late 2026. General observations during the site walk-through took into consideration contextual accessibility and infrastructure for the art exhibitions and installation in LaFayette Park. During the walk, we discussed ADA compliant strategies, multi-sensory and community-based design principles for the co-creation of a public art-monument. The group also discussed how the site-specific artwork will be activated through public programming done in partnership with the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) Felipe De Neve branch. The hill in front of HOLA’s Arts & Recreation center has generated lots of inspiration; The hill is a safe, visible space for families and functions as a natural amphitheater. Murals are an option, provided HOLA oversees maintenance. Projects outside HOLA’s boundaries or maintenance scope, managed by LA Parks & Rec, require additional input.
Collaborators
Collaborators expect “MARKINGS” to open to the public in 2026. They hope that “MARKINGS” will serve as a pilot project, expanding similar public-history efforts to other LA and Southern California neighborhoods with significant Indigenous immigrant communities.
About Markings
The Mellon Foundation awarded a transformative grant to UCLA cityLAB and Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA) to lead the collaborative project “MARKINGS: Inscribing Indigenous Immigrant Histories in Westlake,” an effort to illuminate overlooked cultural histories of Los Angeles’ Westlake neighborhood through public art and archives.
“MARKINGS” is a cityLAB design research project led by principal investigators Gustavo Leclerc of UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, Maite Zubiaurre of UCLA European Languages and Transcultural Studies, and Tony Brown of HOLA, in collaboration with a team of researchers, community and Indigenous immigrant activists, and public officials. By focusing on culturally and linguistically diverse Indigenous immigrant groups, collaborators aim to elevate the Westlake neighborhood’s present conditions and future potential through an understanding of its diverse history, and to deepen awareness of the Indigenous immigrant experience more broadly.
The Mellon Foundation awarded “MARKINGS” with a total of $2.7 million in institutional support. The project has roots in cityLAB’s previous research on immigrant communities in Westlake that started in 2019. In particular, it expands upon Leclerc’s 2020 project “Making Home: Immigrant Indigenous Stories in Westlake” for UCLA’s Chancellor’s Art Initiative. Formal collaboration between cityLAB, HOLA, and the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) to anchor these stories with a physical representation in Lafayette Park began in 2021 with the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded “Reflections in Lafayette Park: Reimagining an Urban Oasis.”
Working closely with Indigenous Immigrant Organizations, and LAPL, HOLA, and cityLAB have been building relationships with families and individuals throughout Westlake, focused on gathering intergenerational family stories and building a holistic narrative of the neighborhood’s formation.
cityLAB researchers gravitated toward the Westlake/Pico Union neighborhood due to its concentration of immigrant families, as well as the ways in which the Indigenous immigrant experience has transformed the region; Los Angeles has the largest Indigenous immigrant community in the United States, and the Westlake neighborhood is the most culturally and linguistically diverse enclave in the city.
“For 34 years, Heart of Los Angeles’s central campus has been blessed to help remove barriers and provide equitable access to quality programs and services for thousands of Indigenous children,” observes Tony Brown, CEO of HOLA. “Being able to partner with Indigenous groups from the Westlake area, UCLA cityLAB, and the LA Public Library to digitally inscribe Indigenous immigrant narratives feels so important, particularly at this time of generational and economic shifts throughout this historic and culturally rich community. We are honored to help create a welcoming space and with extraordinary community partners, humbly share in the leadership of this project.”
The Mellon Foundation honor comes via Mellon’s Humanities in Place and Public Knowledge programs. The Foundation describes Humanities in Place as an effort “to support a diverse collection of bold, innovative organizations and places that are rethinking past practice and creating visionary new approaches for how to collectively understand, uplift, and celebrate more complete stories about who we are as a nation—both within distinct communities and as a broader society.”
“MARKINGS” is led by cityLAB’s Gustavo Leclerc and Maite Zubiaurre (UCLA European Languages and Transcultural Studies & Spanish and Portuguese) and Tony Brown (Heart of Los Angeles) as Principal Investigators, with Dana Cuff (cityLAB/AUD), Michelle Caswell (UCLA Information Studies), Gaspar Rivera-Salgado (UCLA Labor Center), Nara Hernandez (Heart of Los Angeles), Sara Z. Mijares (Mundo Maya Foundation), Estanislao Maqueos (Maqueos Music Academy), and John Szabo and Eva Mitnick (Los Angeles Public Library).
About cityLAB-UCLA
CityLAB, founded in 2006, is a multidisciplinary center in UCLA’s Architecture and Urban Design Department focused on leveraging design for spatial justice and to address contemporary urban concerns. Specifically, cityLAB explores the challenges facing the 21st century metropolis, expanding the possibilities for our cities to grow more equitably, livably, sustainably, and beautifully, with affordable housing at the center of its efforts. cityLAB’s investigations comprise rigorous scholarship as well as practical implication, design and theory, and formal exploration of cultural and political consequence. The lab initiates its own projects related to four core initiatives: spatial justice, the postsuburban metropolis, rethinking green, and new infrastructures. For more information, visit https://citylab.ucla.edu/.
About The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.
