2-channel video, 2-studio monitors, archival materials, handcut and digital transparencies on light boxes

Unsettling the Settled: Archival Glimpses of Abolitionist Futures explores the Lincoln Heights Jail, a decommissioned carceral institution located adjacent to the Los Angeles River. Built in 1927, it housed many notable inmates including those arresed during the Zoot Suit Riots and the Watts Riots. Although t was decommissioned in 1965, from 1992-2000, a group of local artists and activists reclaimed part of the building and formed the Aztlan Cultural Arts Foundation. 

A two channel video of the jail in its current state is interwoven with interviews of Dr. Catherine Ramirez and Luis J. Rodriguez decribing the histories of youth subcultures in California and the earliest instances of policing and criminalizing black and brown youth en masse. They also reflect on youth and the carceral system today and imagine alternatives rooted in the kinds of activities led by the Aztlan Cultural Arts Center. The jail is filmed from multiple vantage points that frame it within the larger urban grid as “another rectangle and another way of controlling and managing bodies of colors.” The video pans, tilts and abstracts the building and juxtaposes it with the flow of the Los Angeles River. It blurs borders, boundaries and grids meant to visually unsettle the settled.

A cluster of pedestals with light boxes form a constellation of images made from archival materials, color, design and light, acting as “cosmologies that envision other futures.” Altogether, Unsettling the Settled suggests that histories of resistance and affirmation already exist, even if temporarily buried or obfuscated. Referencing Nick Estes’ powerful book title, “Our History is Our Future,” de la Loza makes visible stories of empowerment to activate the imagination today.