“Story, like culture, is constantly moving. It is a river where no gallon of water is the same gallon as 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.” - Deborah Miranda (Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen) Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir.
Deborah Miranda’s words highlight the challenges of telling a story, or history, that tries to represent the past. It is an impossible task that leaves more questions than we started with.
In this exhibition, 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.
We represent these moments primarily with material from 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 colonial limits of history and empower us as future stewards of time, space and story.
Exhibition curated by Marissa López. Marissa is Associate Graduate Dean and Professor of English and Chicana/o and Central American Studies at UCLA and was the first Scholar-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Public Library.