Forward LA: Race, Arts, and Inclusive Placemaking after the 1992 Civil Unrest

In 2016, a collective of over 20 USC faculty formed, calling themselves RAP: Race, Arts, and Placemaking. We saw both a timely urgency and an opportunity. A national conversation about race had opened up to a degree not seen in recent times. At the same time, many of our faculty’s individual research projects and community work had been uncovering grassroots place makers of color who have been claiming urban space through design, media, the arts and cultural practice. We sought to extend the national discussion beyond the important topics of policing and discrimination, to include how to create places in the city where communities of color can thrive. How might we disrupt an intractable pattern in which public and private sector investments intended to redevelop the city often result in disproportionately displacing low-income communities of color? How might we conceptualize and reimagine related topics, such as neighborhood change, community engagement, the design of infrastructure and the integration of emerging media platforms into space, in a manner that defies displacement? How can we expand this conversation beyond the university and make a pertinent contribution to a very real process?RAP received a Provost Research Collaboration Fund Grant for 2016-2019 which supported our development of new curriculum, symposia, and collaborative projects. This website archives two kinds of oral history content created through two RAP initiatives: student oral history projects created for its namesake class, PPDE 638 Race, Arts, and Placemaking, and community member stories collected in an oral history booth set up during a conference to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1992 LA Civil Unrest.Both undergraduate and graduate students took the early versions of the class in Spring 2017 and 2018. The intellectual aim of the RAP class was to investigate the underexplored intersection of race, arts, and placemaking. It foregrounds race in the arts and cultural placemaking literature. It also explores how the urban development and planning literature might benefit from seriously considering how arts and culture might be a potent realm for expressing and empowering the fuller humanity and agency of marginalized ethnic communities and a strategy for claiming urban space. Furthermore, the class investigates what a spatialized framework might elucidate about arts and race. In order to explore these questions as well as to uncover narratives, students found oral history subjects themselves in the LA region.On April 27-28, 2017, with five other co-organizing entities, RAP convened a large conference entitled, “FORWARD LA: Race, Arts, and Inclusive Placemaking after the 1992 Civil Unrest. (https://slab.today/2016/11/rap-conference/). We were dissatisfied with how the news media and conventional wisdom had narrated what happened in 1992 while simultaneously missing other stories. Taking advantage of the convening, we set up an oral history booth to formally record the stories of conference attendees. The USC Price School also recorded the sessions that brought together academics, activists, community members, and artists, discussing neighborhood change, the alliances of social movement organizations, and the role that arts and culture have played in transforming Los Angeles.

2016年，由20余名南加州大学（University of Southern California, USC）教职员工组成的集体正式成立，并将自身命名为RAP：种族、艺术与场所营造（Race, Arts, and Placemaking）。我们既察觉到了刻不容缓的紧迫性，也看到了发展机遇。当时关于种族问题的全国性讨论达到了近年罕见的热度。与此同时，我们多位教职员工的个人研究项目与社区工作均发现，诸多有色人种基层场所营造者正通过设计、媒体、艺术与文化实践，对城市空间提出主张。我们旨在将这场全国性讨论从警务与歧视等核心议题延伸开来，纳入“如何打造可供有色人种社区蓬勃发展的城市空间”这一主题。我们该如何打破这一棘手的固有模式：旨在重启城市发展的公共与私营部门投资，最终往往不成比例地导致低收入有色人种社区遭到驱逐？我们又该如何对邻里变迁、社区参与、基础设施设计，以及新兴媒体平台与空间的融合等相关议题进行概念化与重塑，从而规避驱逐效应？我们该如何将这场讨论从校园延伸出去，并为真实的社会进程作出切实贡献？RAP于2016至2019年获得了教务长研究合作基金（Provost Research Collaboration Fund Grant）资助，用于开发全新课程、举办专题研讨会及推进合作项目。本网站归档了由RAP两项举措产出的两类口述历史内容：一是为同名课程PPDE 638《种族、艺术与场所营造》打造的学生口述历史项目，二是在纪念1992年洛杉矶内乱25周年的研讨会期间，通过口述历史展位收集的社区成员故事。2017年与2018年春季，本科生与研究生均修读过该课程的早期版本。该RAP课程的学术目标，是探究种族、艺术与场所营造之间尚未得到充分挖掘的交叉领域。它将种族问题置于艺术与文化场所营造研究文献的核心位置，同时探讨：若认真审视艺术与文化可作为何种有力场域，用以表达边缘化族裔社区更完整的人性与主体性，并作为主张城市空间的策略，那么城市发展与规划研究文献将从中获得何种裨益。此外，该课程还探究了空间化框架可如何阐释艺术与种族的关联。为探索上述问题并挖掘叙事素材，学生们在洛杉矶地区自行寻访口述历史访谈对象。2017年4月27日至28日，RAP联合其他五家合作机构举办了大型研讨会，主题为“奋进洛杉矶：1992年内乱后的种族、艺术与包容性场所营造”（链接：https://slab.today/2016/11/rap-conference/）。我们对新闻媒体与主流舆论对1992年事件的叙事方式感到不满，因其同时遗漏了诸多其他故事。借此研讨会契机，我们设立了口述历史展位，正式记录参会者的个人故事。南加州大学普莱斯公共政策学院（USC Price School）还对研讨会环节进行了录制，参会者包括学者、活动家、社区成员与艺术家，讨论内容涵盖邻里变迁、社会运动组织的联盟关系，以及艺术与文化在重塑洛杉矶过程中所扮演的角色。