Clockship Presents: Sarah Rosalena Brady’s For Submersion

January 04, 2023

Los Angeles, CA – The Los Angeles-based arts nonprofit Clockshop (2022 Organizational Support Grants awardee), in partnership with Los Angeles State Historic Park, announces a new artist commission from LA artist Sarah Rosalena, For Submersion. This temporary public artwork will be installed, and if rainfall permits, submerged, at the Los Angeles State Historic Park watershed from December 4, 2022 – April 2, 2023. The opening reception is January 15, 2023 from 2:00 - 4:00 PM.

Before settler colonization, LA State Historic Park was the floodplain of Paayme Paxaayt, the Los Angeles River, that supported Tongva people and wildlife. For Submersion recalls the LA River’s importance by honoring its history as an ancestral pathway. The mediums used to create For Submersion highlight Rosalena’s attention to Los Angeles river's evolution over time, honoring practices used in the past and present, she merges craft making and digital arts as a way to interpret and re-envision land.

For Submersion is both a physical work and digital artifact, which aims to re-narrativize, through yarn painting, the river's temporalities and historicity as a watershifter. Rosalena adorned a river rock from Paayme Paxaayt with Wixárika yarn painting, a method of image-making traditionally done with beeswax, pine sap, and handspun yarn that has been passed down in her family for generations. The yarn represents a throughline to mother earth and to the matrilineal bloodline of weavers in her family. The yarn painted rock was 3D scanned, then digitally fabricated into a physical sculpture that will collect and interact with rainwater. In addition, a large commissioned textile will be handwoven as a companion piece, and will use satellite imagery of the Los Angeles River as a weaving pattern.

“Sarah’s practice honors traditional craft through its digital manipulation, re-casting how we position Indigenous knowledge within our present and future. Her work elicits Native futurity, and explores the relationship between land, culture, natural resources, and the digital worlds we must inhabit,” says Clockshop Director Sue Bell Yank. “Her monumental river rock sculpture within LA State Historic Park is both a keystone for bridging multiple worlds, and a prayer for different, generative, and abundant modes of interacting with them.”

Central to this commission is a partnership with Chapter House, an Indigenous-led organization that provides space for Indigenous Peoples and allies to appreciate art, convene and collaborate, celebrate individual and shared Indigenous cultures, and explore the complexities of the 21st Century Indigenous experience. Chapter House and Rosalena will lead hands-on workshops for Native youth, engaging them with the land at LAHSP through craft and digital technology. Each workshop is designed to mirror the process for creating For Submersion, wherein technology functions as a means of digital preservation and archive for future generations.

SUPPORT

For Submersion was commissioned by Clockshop and supported through our long-standing partnership with California State Parks. The production of this work was generously supported by the California Arts Council, Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, and the Pasadena Art Alliance, with additional support from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, and Clockshop’s generous community of supporters. The series of workshops led by Chapter House and Sarah Rosalena are generously supported by the California Arts Council.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sarah Rosalena Brady (Wixárika) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Los Angeles. Her work deconstructs technology with material interventions, creating new narratives for hybrid objects that function between human/nonhuman, ancient/future, and handmade/autonomous to override power structures rooted in colonialism. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at UC Santa Barbara in Computational Craft and Haptic Media. She has received awards from Creative Capital; the LACMA Art + Tech Lab; Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation; the Steve Wilson Award from Leonardo; the International Society for Art, Sciences, and Technology; and the Craft Futures Grant from the Center for Craft. Rosalena recently showed her work at Frieze LA and Blum & Poe Gallery.

ABOUT CLOCKSHOP

Clockshop works with artists to deepen the connection between communities and public land, in order to build a shared vision of a future based in belonging and care. As a Los Angeles-based arts and culture nonprofit, Clockshop produces free public programming and commissions contemporary artist projects on public land to better connect Angelenos to the land we live on.

We address the climate crisis as a cultural problem that requires equitable cultural solutions. Through long-term collaborations with artists, like-minded partners, and local stakeholders, Clockshop promotes ecological stewardship and climate resilience among the communities we serve. Our projects center working-class communities of color in Los Angeles and aim to support the wellbeing and vitality of multiple communities. Whether Indigenous, African American, Latinx, Asian American, Pacific Islander, or immigrants living in LA, we shape the city’s future together.

We bring this mission to our work at Los Angeles State Historic Park in Chinatown, and Rio de Los Angeles State Park (“The Bowtie”) in Glassell Park, in collaboration with California State Parks.