Image: A work in progress “Community Means” banner that was started last weekend, at the 15th Annual Festival for All Skid Row Artists, October 2024.
Kind light /Բարի լույս* to you, dear neighbors, artists, collaborators, community partners, co-conspirators, supporters of arts in Skid Row and of doodles without borders,
*the morning greeting in Armenian translates as “kind light” (բարի լույս [baree looys])
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-> SAY NO TO ARTWASHING AND DISPLACEMENT! UPDATES regarding the open letter from last month in this Hyperallergic article. You can still sign the OPEN LETTER here: bit.ly/RVEncampmentOpenLetter
-> LOOKING FOR a movement rooted, collectivist, working class, tenant power centering VOTING GUIDE? Go to VOTERGUIDE.LA !
Post highlights: (1) Events/Activities in and near Skid Row, (2) Thoughts Aloud – Local to Global, (3) Quote of the Month.
HIGHLIGHTS in and near SKID ROW, October 2024
Some neighborhood events, celebrations, and parties to join
- Sat, Nov 2, 3pm-7pm – Dia De Los Muertos @ Eastside Cafe (5469 Huntington Dr)
- Sun, Nov 3, 2pm: Marx’s Capital, Chapter 1 – Book discussion by @thepublicschoolla at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway)
- Friday, Nov 1, 6pm, Dia De Los Muertos Theatrical Performance and Procession at Olvera Street (across from Union Station)
- Sat, Nov 2, 3-7pm: Dia De Los Muertos @ Eastside Cafe (5469 Huntington Dr)
- Sat, Nov 2, 6pm: Dia De Los Muertos Theatrical Performance and Procession at Olvera Street (across from Union Station)
- Thu, Nov 7, 3-4:30pm: Doodles Arts Table @ General Jeff (Gladys) Park CHANGES to Thursdays 3-4:30pm
- Fri, Nov 8, 5-7pm: Arts Jam Open Mic @ Studio 526 (526 San Pedro)
- Wed, Nov 13, 5pm: MOVIE IN THE PARK @ San Julian Park (Movie starts at dusk)
- Fri, Nov 15, 12-3pm: MARKETPLACE at LACAN (838 E 6th St)
- Friday, Nov 15, 7pm, Movie Night at Skid Row Museum
- ***SUNDAY, NOV 17, 3-5pm: Windows of Little Bronze Tokyo Culmination Celebration @ Azay in Little Tokyo (226 1st St)***
- Tues, Nov 19, 10:30a-12pm: Creative Writing @ Skid Row Museum
- Thur, Nov 28: Day of Remembrance and Collective Celebration of Resistance, saying “No Thanks, No Giving” to Settler- Colonial Revisionism of historic and ongoing geno//dal policies against the Indigenous peoples of occupied Turtle Island
- Fri, Nov 29, Dusk: Movie Night by StopLAPDSpying coalition in front of LAPD headquarters (check their instagram to confirm and for more info)
To view or print the full monthly calendar, go to doodleswithoutborders.com/calendar
Pa/est/ine + Skid Row Actions: some places to find local downtown LA and nearby actions that make local Skid Row to global connections: Pal Youth Movement – LA, Organize – LA, StopLAPDSpying, LACAN
SAVE THE DATE
Fri, Dec 6th, 10am-5pm – Re/Sound Festival by Street Symphony @ Midnight Mission
ONGOING
“Welcome to Covid Hotel” at Skid Row Museum (250 S Broadway) until December 2024
OPEN MICS as places to come together, and plant seeds of collective struggle.
There are at least THREE open mics currently in Skid Row neighborhood:
Weekly – (1) every Thurs, 6:30-9pm at Peace and Healing Center (116 E 5th)
Monthly –
2) every second Friday of the month, 5-7pm, at Studio526 (526 San Pedro St)
3) every last Friday, 5-7:30pm with Lorinda at LA Poverty Dept‘s Skid Row Museum (250 S. Broadway)
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THOUGHTS ALOUD
HALLOWEEN AS COMMUNITY
Looking at the history and pre-Christian origins of Samhain, then All Saints/Hollows Day (Dia de los Muertos) and Eve/ Halloween, thinking that perhaps this is actually the one deeply relational holiday celebration that we have. From celebrating harvest, to coming together and seeking protection for wintertime, learning from and honoring our dead, Halloween touches on our relationship with the personal and collective, with death, with our fears, as well as with joy and celebration. It is also directly connected to seasons, associated with mutual support, with cycles.
Halloween has been coopted in many ways, but it has been very resistant to homogenizing, having a layered relationship with individual and collective human condition, belonging and otherness. Halloween as a collectivist, queer and trans(formational) celebration. Halloween as one of the many ways to come together in disassembling institutions of vio/ence–capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, settler-colonialism, patriarchy, heteronormativity–and replace them with collective life affirming institutions.
dwb ONLINE:
1) Doodles without Borders (dwb) is now on Instagram / Facebook.
2) There is a monthly dwb Skid Row Community & Arts Calendar. If you do community strengthening work in Skid Row and know of an event/meeting that should be on there, please share.
3) dwb wishlist! You can find it here: bit.ly/dwbwishlist
Able and interested to SUPPORT Doodles?
Support Artwork Storage as a Human Right (and Collective Responsibility)
Community Arts Depot is a sister project addressing the vital need for artwork storage and access focused on Skid Row neighborhood members and residents. Artwork Storage as a Human Right – a glimpse from the Community Arts Depot story. This project’s sustainability is deeply dependent on grassroots support. To donate to the campaign click HERE!
Email us for donating directly via Venmo, Paypal, or other ways.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Personal advancement has become the proof of self-determination, a ridiculous belief but one that is nevertheless strongly held. The breakdown of collective identification… has set in motion an increasing individualist identification fed by popular culture, the structure of the market, and the beurocracy of everyday life.“
– from “Neo-Colonialism and Indigenous Structures” (1990)in the book From a Native Daughter by Haunani-Kay Trask, a leader in Hawaiian anti-colonial movement for self-determination and self-government
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For previous newsletter(s), go to www.doodleswithoutborders.com homepage
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Community Artivism 