I found an LA Weekly Article talking about a very powerful art exhibit that linked to the 1992 LA riots. The exhibit is called Re-Imagine Justice and the art is titled Angels of the Movement. This is not your typical paint on canvas kind of art, instead it takes on a specific location and reinvents that space with different mediums of art to create a loud and powerful message. It is an example of installation art in which the whole space is utilized for analysis. The location is an abandoned convenience store with miscellaneous items to represent the time period it is set in. Behind the counter, overlooking customers, are three large frames with B&W pictures of teenagers: Emmet Till, Latasha Harlins, and Trayvon Martin. All are representative of kids whose lives were taken before their time during different time periods. Till was killed in Mississippi in wake of the civil rights movement. Latasha Harlins was shot during the L.A riots in a convenience store by a Korean storeowner. Trayvon Martin was a victim of police brutality committed by George Zimmerman. Each death was during a certain movement constantly morphing into something else but never improving. The movements were the civil rights movement, the '92 riots, and what is now the Black Lives Matter. Each of the teenagers are a face during those parts of history.
What is significant about this art is that is takes place in a central location. All three of these deaths occurred when they were in or heading towards the convenience store and they were all racial crimes. The similarity of it all brings into question if anything has changed? Each time an African-American dies it feels as if the world is getting numb to it. The reason the Rodney King beating took the world by spectacle was because it happened to be recorded even in that dinosaur age. However now that we are in a modern age where everything is recorded there is still no sense of justice. This art just like the '92 riots is a reminder that the past is the present. Without united action there will be no change and only martyrs.
-Mayeena Ulkarim
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