Commonwealth and Council
Commonwealth and Council
January 20—March 3, 2018
Reception: Saturday, January 20, 5–8PM
Location: 3006 W 7TH ST STE 220 Los Angeles CA 90005
Exhibition Hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 12–6PM and by appointment
“Endless Nights” is a collaboration between Rosales and Eddie Ruvalcaba, who sent in photographs for the archives. When they met, Ruvalcaba surprised her with his own trove of photographs, and mentioned the existence of other damaged photographs and negatives. Ruvalcaba’s photography stood out to Rosales from his first submission because his photos captured the essence of what Rosales herself had observed and experienced as a teenager.This installation attempts to embody this inherently ephemeral essence, materializing the collective memories of vulnerable communities to explore how impermanence might be assuaged through objects. Most of the objects in Rosales’s collection have been rescued, like Ruvalcaba’s photographs, from secret stashes in basements or garages where they were hidden over the years—from parents, from lovers, and ultimately from children. “They were just collecting dust,” people will often tell Rosales as she gratefully receives their donations. In time, we lose people, objects, and the clarity of certain memories—and yet a salvaged object becomes a receptacle for the memories and emotions attached to it. The conversations and immaterial richness begun with Veteranas and Rucas and Map Pointz are brought back to material representation; the party crew hats, flyers, newspaper clippings, and Street Beat magazines are the remaining, potent connections to the people and the moment that were lost. “Now the only thing we have is the material. With my cousin, now I just have his backpack and his photo, but these are things that represent a part of him. [These objects] are as close as I’ll ever be to him. And that’s why this material [I’ve collected and people have donated] is so important because this is as close as we will ever be to that time.” Rosales and Ruvalcaba invite others to continue to help them bring this time closer by adding their own photos and ephemera to the visual conversation. Donations have already been made by people like Theresa Vega, who designed many party and rave flyers in the 1990s. Part altar, part collaborative installation, this work invites those who lived through this time to make new additions. Lived experiences become documentation and ephemera, which in turn become archive and history.