Saturday, December 8, 2007

Vincent Ramos

As the only native of Los Angeles in the exhibition and with a family history in the city dating back to the 1920's, I became interested my family's various work-related commutes over a prolonged period of time. I have been, for the past few months, investigating this idea by conducting interviews with select members of my family about their commuting history and in cases of deceased relatives, constructing their commutes through their personal papers and the recollections of others. The project deals with the attainment and erasure of memory as it relates to larger social, cultural and political issues inherent within the city's history, especially those related to the working class Chicano experience. Collectively, the different commute memories of all the participants will create a much larger non-linear narrative that, because of its inability to travel smoothly from A to B, will function like a drive where the ultimate goal is to get lost.

The interviews will be displayed along with related objects from all the participants, as well as select items culled from the artists'various collections of paper ephemera (i.e. vintage maps, photographs, musical soundtracks, and overall traces of evidence related to Twentieth Century Los Angeles history.

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