LOS ANGELES - A panel discussion on the art and culture of South Los Angeles, featuring local artists, a filmmaker, and a writer, will take place Saturday, July 31, 11 a.m., at the Southern California Library, located at 6120 S. Vermont Avenue, between Slauson and Gage in Los Angeles. The event is part of the Library’s community history project, "From Generation to Generation: Making a Life in South Los Angeles, 1940–2005," and is free and open to the public. More information is available by calling (323) 759-6063.

The panel of artists will join with community members to talk about music, art, film, fashion, and other cultural expressions that have reflected and shaped community life in South L.A. The panelists include filmmaker Marlem Landa , award-winning mystery writer Gary Phillips, graffiti artist Alex Rodriguez, and public artist Robin Strayhorn. Multicultural arts professor Sydney Kamlager will moderate the panel. (For bios, see below.)

"Art has the power to change the way people view their life," said Alexis Moreno, Library Program Director and "Generations” project leader. "We want to explore how art and artists have made a difference here in South L.A." She encouraged people to make it a "day of culture” by coming to the panel discussion and then going on to the Central Avenue Jazz Festival.

The "Generations" project is scheduled to continue into 2005 with film series, community dialogues, photo and art exhibits, and oral history interviews. It is one of eight projects statewide funded by the California Council for the Humanities under its “California Stories: Communities Speak” program; it is also supported in part by a grant from the California Community Foundation. Information about “Generations” activities and events is available on the web (http://www.socallib.org/generations) or through an email update list. To sign up for the update list, call Moreno at (323) 759-6063 or send email to archives@socallib.org with "Generations" in the subject line.

PANELIST BIOS:

Sydney Kamlager teaches multicultural arts at Cal State Los Angeles. She has worked in the non-profit arts arena in Los Angeles, as well as in the entertainment industry.

Marlem Landa is a filmmaker whose work looks at issues of immigration, identity, and community. She is a graduate of Jefferson High School, where she was involved in the Film Academy, and she currently attends Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Landa is researching California legislation for her film about the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s recent raids in various parts of Los Angeles that targeted “illegal” immigrants.

Gary Phillips is a community activist, mystery writer, and public affairs director for Legal Aid Foundation who grew up in South L.A. He writes in several mediums from novels to comic books to screen plays. In May 2003, Phillips was awarded the Chester Himes award for his works at the 8th Annual Chester Himes Black Mystery Writers conference. His first book in the Ivan Monk PI series, Violent Spring, was set in the racially and politically charged aftermath of the ’92 L.A. riots. His most recent work, bangers, is about bent cops, driven DAs, and hungry politicians who have become as ruthless as the criminals they’ve dealt with.

Alex Rodriguez, aka Duce, is a muralist, an active graff-artist, and art director of Artists with a Vision. AWV is an arts collective initiated in 1999 to reintroduce the fine arts into the South L.A. community. Born in Mexico City in 1974, Rodriguez has lived in Los Angeles since immigrating to South Los Angeles with his parents at the age of three. Since painting his first mural in 1988, he has painted murals all over the city of Los Angeles and exhibited extensively in the West Coast. He has also lectured at universities and high schools on urban expressionism.

Robin Strayhorn is a Los Angeles–based artist who works in paintings and ceramic tiles and has completed various public art projects in South L.A. and other neighborhoods. She attended Detroit’s Cass Tech. High, a school with a national reputation for visual and musical artists. From Detroit, she moved to New York, then to Los Angeles, where she graduated from UCLA. Her recent installations include the MTA Blue Line public seating project for the Rosa Parks station, the L.A. Public Library mural, and the ceramic tiles at the Gigante supermarket on Slauson and Vermont.