University Art Museum, California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH)

Fund: $28,000

Artist Lauren Halsey will be in residence at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) as part of the University’s signature PRAXIS program, which invites acclaimed artists from South Los Angeles to create new experimental work in collaboration with CSUDH students and South Bay residents. Halsey, who grew up in Compton and whose mother and other relatives attended CSUDH, will further explore the history, social conditions, neighborhoods, and storylines of South Los Angeles—such as gentrification and the displacement of black and brown communities. The exhibition, which will open in Spring 2020, will build upon Halsey’s monumental place making project The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project, which has been four years in planning (a prototype was included in the Hammer’s Made in L.A. 2018). During the residency, the artist will collaborate with CSUDH students and South Los Angeles community members to create sculptural elements (to be sited in the gallery and on campus), installations, process documents, and provocations that will explore life in the Crenshaw District—its past, present, and future. Iconography from Afrofuturism, funk, architecture, and Egyptian cosmology will be featured visual elements in the work produced with the students, many of whom live in the neighborhoods where the artist grew up. An exploration of the University’s social justice history by the artist and students will further deepen the context of The Crenshaw District Hieroglyph Project and its expansive narrative. In addition to the residency and exhibition, Halsey will program a series of performative events, workshops, and dialogues in the University Art Gallery that will engage audiences and activate the space.