Artists Critique Gentrification of Little Tokyo

By Abe Ahn. Posted October 16, 2018.

Editor’s note:  We are proud to present an in-depth look at an innovative arts immersion project that took place over six months in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo.  The following article by Abe Ahn comes to us courtesy of Hyperallergic, which describes itself as “a forum for playful, serious, and radical perspectives on art and culture in the world today.

Created by husband-and-husband team, Veken Gueyikian and Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic officially launched on October 14, 2009. It combines the best of art blog and magazine culture by focusing on publishing quality and engaging writing and images from informed and provocative perspectives.

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Photo by Abe Ahn.

Artists Are Addressing the Tide of Gentrification in LA’s Little Tokyo

The Little Tokyo Service Center is piloting an artist residency designed to help local residents and small businesses address the gentrification affecting Little Tokyo and other parts of Los Angeles.

by Abe Ahn, July 27, 2018

LOS ANGELES — In 2015, the Obama administration, in one of its major arts policy achievements, announced a three-year $3 million grant to the Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), one of six grantees of the ArtPlace America Community Development Investments program. The one-time program invested in projects that embed arts and culture strategies into six community development and planning organizations across the country. Three years later, LTSC, a neighborhood-based organization founded in 1979, is piloting an artist residency designed to help local residents, small businesses, and other community members address the tide of gentrification hitting Little Tokyo and other parts of Los Angeles. Since May, four artists selected to be part of the inaugural +LAB Artist Residency have been living in the Daimaru Hotel, an SRO hotel in the historic First Street North block of Little Tokyo.  Click on this link for the full article:

Artists Are Addressing the Tide of Gentrification in LA’s Little Tokyo

 

 

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