On April 1st, 2015, I arrived at my studio to see a folded piece of white paper taped to the door inside a large, orange, spray painted circle: it was a 30-day notice of eviction. I thought it was a neighborly April Fool’s prank. So did my neighbors.
2834 Colorado Avenue, Santa Monica, California, had been — after much speculation — approved of as a redevelopment zone “with a focus on [a] creative and mixed use program that includes creative office space, commercial retail, and new residential apartments.” Though rumors about the redevelopment had been circulating ever since I’d arrived from New York in 2011, my neighbors and I had naively begun to believe it would never go through.
So, I invited five artists and writers — close friends who had an intimacy with the physical space, with my ideas + ambitions + failures — to spend one day of uninterrupted dream time in the studio and come up with a proposal for what he or she would have done while in residency, had the opportunity remained.
Participating artists and writers were Taylor McDaniel, Rachel McLeod Kaminer, Lisa Oxley, Reneé Petropoulos, and Shalini Sanjay Patel.
view the first notice | view the second notice | view the third notice
