Cochlear – Heal Hear Here — LA Artcore

Cochlear

LA Artcore to participate in Heal Hear Here by collaborating with Ching Ching Cheng and Amanda Sutton Artsy.

Bodily-formed ceramic bells with knockers in the shape of the inside of the mouth hung from the pepper trees and gave voice to the wind passing through the park. 

 

Ching Ching Cheng was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the United States in 2002, and received an MFA from ArtCenter College of Design in 2020. She is interested in the relationship between identity and space. How the physical environment is in relation to and has an effect on gender, culture, society, economics and politics. Her practice has consisted of drawings, paintings, sculptures, installations, performance, and videos. Ching has exhibited at LACMA Rental and Sales Gallery, Chinese American Museum, Craft and Folk Art Museum, 21c Museum, DTLA ArtCenter, colleges, universities, and art fairs throughout the United States, and also has had solo exhibitions in Taiwan and China. Recently she attended a parent artist residency at Elsewhere Studio in Colorado funded by the Sustainable Art Foundation, a week residency at Cardboard City at Santa Monica, and a month and a half residency at Atche Art Space in Los Angeles in 2022, also attended a three-month residency program at 943 Studio in Kunming, China in 2011. Ching has taught workshops and lectured at colleges, universities, museums, non-profit organizations, and private art centers. She received Individual Artist Grants from the City of Pasadena in 2022, received artist-in-residency grant from Side Street Project funded by Mike Kelley Foundation in 2022, received grants in 2011, in 2015 from an art and cultural center in Taiwan, and in 2018 from the city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles World Airports, Arts Exhibition Program. Ching currently lives and works in Altadena, California.

Amanda Sutton Artsy was born in Petaluma, CA and lives and works in Los Angeles. A retired professional ballet dancer, her work often deals with the body and the alien. Her interdisciplinary work explores legacies of trauma, notions of faith and perceptions of reality, and her family's connection to physical and internet-based UFO and conspiracy communities and the sociological and religious implications of these belief structures. She earned her BA from UCLA's School of the Arts and Architecture in 2019 and has shown work at New Wight Gallery, Barrett Art Gallery, Trunk Gallery, HomeLA and other locations throughout southern California. Her choreography, performance and sculptural installations have been featured at Desert Daze and the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

 

Heal Hear Here

On Saturday, May 20, 2023, LA Freewaves and 30 art organizations are offering L.A. County residents a healing art event called HEAL HEAR HERE at the LA State Historic Park. The extraordinary event will explore many healing art modes curated by a broad community of arts organizations, working together to create a central event to help revive Los Angeles from these years of pandemic, racial injustice and economic disruption. The unprecedented event will feature 30 artworks and performances to create a multi-sensory, multicultural environment that encourages people to break out of isolation and into a reparative afternoon of collective care.

All will partake in striking ways: visual, aural, engaging, and active by Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous, and white artists. 15 performing artists and 15 installation artists will activate dispersed areas in the park, creating space and time for social engagement and artistic participation around the themes of recovery and community. Artistic practices will navigate attendees’ different journeys through personal and collective trauma to address healing processes in several new ways.    

“Heal” comes from “whole” and dilutes harm.  Project 1521 poets are suggesting “unconquered” and the Skid Row performers are recommending “compassionate city”.  

The event will involve Indigenous-informed opening and closing ceremonies, an ancestral walking tour, a labyrinth with listening, a movement and drumming participatory workshop, art workshops, poetry readings, performance art, community chorus, large-scale puppet and sound processions, roaming singing, chimes, a star garden, a community sculpture, tea serving, bike rides, lotions and potions.

This special occasion will gather diverse audiences and artists to create engaging, communal, and cross-cultural experiences. We see the park as a natural healing place, encouraging residents of LA County to connect more deeply and repair our sore bodies, minds, and hearts. The event aims to evoke positive emotions, bolster resilience, manage grief and loss, and overall improve the mental health of LA County.

One can navigate the ADA compliant park easily to a circular central cement stage, across many dirt and stone paths to a bridge, past trees and stone picnic tables.  A glass building serves as an outdoor gallery and the entrance, near free parking areas and bathrooms.  The event lasts from 3 pm until 7 pm, with half of the artists appearing at one specific time and the other half for the whole 4  hours. Join us on May 20th for this epic, unforgettable event!