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# Catch Live Performances and Screenings at This Drive-In Theater
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/drive-in-theater-flax-foundation-tin-flats/
- Published: 2019-08-21T18:13:56.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:38:54.000Z
- Description: This month’s programming at FLAX Foundation’s Drive-In Theater features a group meditation, live performance, and a movie starring Julianne Moore.
- Author: Matt Stromberg
- Tags: Art, California, Events, Film, FLAX Foundation, Los Angeles, Performance, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:34 (2019, 2020, part 1)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2019/08/sonjagerdes-gas-oe-lamag.jpg)

Sonja Gerdes (photo by Ricardo Palavecino)

The FLAX Foundation (France Los Angeles Exchange) has a [Drive-In Theater](https://flaxfoundation.org/initiative/drive-in-theater-newseason/?ref=hyperallergic.com) that combines the 20th-century communal spectacle of the drive-in movie with a selection of films chosen and made by artists. Now midway through its second season, FLAX will hold three more events at the outdoor courtyard of Frogtown gallery and studio Tin Flats.

This month’s program features a performance from German-born, Los Angeles-based artist Sonja Gerdes, who brings together sci-fi, tech, textiles, magic, and myth to create poetic and practical remedies for a dystopian future. In the guise of her costumed alter ego, “Pie of Trouble,” Gerdes will lead a group meditation for the parked cars, aided by crystals and clay. Mobile truck gallery Gas will also be there, so visitors can catch [Gerdes’s current show](https://gas.gallery/exhibitions/sonja-gerdes/?ref=hyperallergic.com) based on her fictional “Oxygenenergizer” project, a machine that creates energy from air. Paired with her performance, Gerdes has selected Todd Haynes’s 1995 film *Safe* which stars Julianne Moore as a Los Angeles housewife whose mysterious, debilitating illness channels our collective post-millennial anxiety and dread.

Upcoming screenings include Samir Ramdani’s *Black Diamond* (2014), about a South Central resident obsessed with art and hip-hop, and Maura Brewer’s *The Surface of Mars* (2016), which examines contested representations of feminism through Jessica Chastain’s roles in *Zero Dark Thirty,* *Interstellar*, and *The Martian.*

Admission is free but [RSVP is required](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/drive-in-theater-sonja-gerdes-presented-by-gas-registration-67544043051?ref=hyperallergic.com) for cars. (No reservation required for open seating.) Complimentary popcorn and iced tea will be served.

**When:** Monday, August 26, doors at 7pm, performance at 8pm, screening at 8:30pm. Continues through the last Monday of the month through October.  
**Where:** Tin Flats (1989 Blake Ave, Elysian Valley, Los Angeles)

*More info at* [*FLAX*](https://flaxfoundation.org/initiative/drive-in-theater-newseason/?ref=hyperallergic.com)*.*