LAYERED LANDS

This exhibit is a Los Angeles story, but "California is many stories," as Deborah Miranda (Ohlone- Costanoan Esselen) writes in Bad Indians. That's a deceptively simple statement, though. Miranda isn't interested in "diversity" or "inclusion," and neither are we. Here we try to capture the networked layers of story that comprise our city, to give a sense of the land's movement through various colonial and national frames, but this is not a history of Los Angeles. "History" is a kind of story, usually crafted by victors, that makes certain assumptions about progress, about past, present, and future. "Time" itself is a story that explains the movement of matter and energy through space. "History" assumes that movement to be linear, but this exhibit asks you to imagine otherwise. What if that movement is cyclical? What if every moment that ever was or ever will be is always already here? What if the colonial and national frames that have shaped Los Angeles are just folds in the cloth of time, layers to be unfolded and folded again? What if the only constant is the land, and the most important thing is to steward it with reverence and respect? What if the land itself is a story that does not require human tellers? "Story," writes Miranda, "is constantly moving. It is a river where no gallon of water is the same gallon it was one second ago. Yet it is still the same river. It exists as a truth. As a whole. Even if the whole is in constant change." We take up our story in this spirit of constant change co-existing with eternal truth, nations as folds in the indigenous currents animating this land. We present three significant Los Angeles moments: when it was ruled by Spain, governed by Mexico, and as it transitioned to US rule. We represent these moments primarily with material from the collections of UCLA and the Los Angeles Public Library, two public institutions with a shared mission of collecting and preserving the city's cultural heritage and making it accessible to all. This kind of public access will help us see beyond the national and colonial limits of history and empower us as future stewards of time, space, and story.