LOS ANGELES — With murals on the streets and art in the library, Tongva artist River Garza actively engages in what a Land Acknowledgment is and can be. His researched mixed-media works are on display at the Los Angeles Central Public Library, just blocks away from his murals at Indian Alley. Notably, both locations are free and accessible to the public.
In 2022, the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) partnered with the Library Foundation of Los Angeles to establish a Public Library Creators in Residence program. Garza, along with Kwasi Boyd-Bouldin, were the inaugural residents.
Located on the first-floor corridor of the Central branch are seven mixed-media works and a diptych by Garza, inspired by his site-specific research and personal connection to the Playa Vista, Silverlake, Chatsworth, Cahuenga, Venice, and Central branches of the library. As a Creator in Residence, he understood the library as a community center — a place “to gather, learn, connect, and share,” the artist told Hyperallergic — with expansive resources and tools. The works on view are composed of collaged archival material and ephemera from library archives, painted over with references to Tongva cultural iconography and language, rendered in acrylic, spray paint, marker, ink, colored pencil, chalk pastel, paper media, and oil stick.
Polyvocalism, change, and time are themes in this mixed-media exhibition. Because these works are only up for a limited time, for instance, Garza constructed a zine documenting his work and process that individuals can take and share with their communities.
The multi-media “Cahuenga Branch Landscape” (2022), too, is an assemblage of different points in time, space, and community. It mixes LAPL municipal reference documents and images of friezes from Western architecture with Tongva pictographs, language, and spiral patterns. He includes the traditional spelling of “Kaweenga,” with its English translation — “place of the mountain”— in addition to street graffiti tags and contemporary custom signage. (Garza is a signmaker; here, he reimagines the LAPL signage in his own visual language.)
Indeed, the seen and unseen in Garza’s compositions illustrate the complexity of Indigenous presence in contemporary urban landscapes. In juxtaposing imagery from Tongva culture with the architecture that built over it, his “landscape” paintings acknowledge and assert the traditional and ongoing presence of his tribe and other tribes, where the 72 branches of the LAPL now reside. As Garza puts it, “The Tongva experience — my experience — is deeply unique. We share this land that is touted to be culturally diverse. There is Indigenous diversity too, and yet, we as artists, and as a whole, are still fighting for our place.”
Blocks away from the Central Library, running south from Winston Street to East 5th Street, is Indian Alley, host to murals and sculptures of Indigenous presence, history, and contemporary community. On a fire escape between the 2nd and 3rd floors of one of the buildings on this block, Garza used spray paint to layer Tongva words such as Yahmonhene (“until we meet again”) with other street-tag like cultural references and symbols that place “traditional” Tongva culture into a hyper-contemporary context. He explains, “As a young person, growing up here, we were always framed in a historical context. There has always been a historical notion of who we are. Not often framed is what we’re doing now.” Thus, Garza’s public art also has a pedagogical aim: to invite non-Indigenous participants to forge a connection to his Indigenous language and community and remind the public of the community whose unceded territory Los Angeles County occupies.
In Indian Alley, Jaque Fragua and Garza collaborated on a mural map of traditional Tongva villages in what is now recognized as the Los Angeles basin. Much like a “You Are Here” vector, he painted “YAANGNA” (Los Angeles) in red font, which pops against the textured celeste-hued background. The map also includes Pimu (Catalina Island), along with imagery of a canoe and compass to signify how Tongva people shared the Pacific Ocean with other saltwater tribes.
River Garza identifies as a “peer-taught” artist, which he recognizes as a different form of education from one at a school or institution. Instead, he credits his early understanding of Tongva cultural art traditions to the matriarchs in his family. In our conversation, he recalled an early memory of working with his mom on a project to illustrate, in his words, “Native people revolting and attempting to burn the mission down,” because of Spanish colonizers‘ violent subjugation of Indigenous peoples.
His mission project, and early participation in Indigenous knowledge traditions like weaving and painting, are foundational examples of Garza’s interdisciplinary art practice. He similarly views graffiti, skateboarding, and lowrider culture as extensions of a “working-class ethos” he espouses. Built into his understanding of art is an appreciation for imbuing utilitarian objects with culturally specific design — using what’s available to leave a mark, encode a message, and beautify.
With deep gratitude for his community’s time, knowledge, and generosity, Garza continues to transmit traditional art practices. Much like the public library, he claims that accessibility is vital. He aims to “eliminate as many barriers as possible,” an ethos visible in initiatives such as his workshops with Meztli Projects.
It is important to note that while Southern California museums, universities, and cultural traditions such as the Oscars include Land Acknowledgements that recognize Los Angeles County as Tovaangar, the Tongva tribe is still not federally recognized. Furthermore, there are more than 80 tribal groups in California seeking federal recognition.
“There is still a lot of fighting for the recognition that we are still here,” Garza states. “We are a community thriving, creating, making things in a contemporary way, but still very rooted to our traditional knowledge.”
