East L.A. Dreaming: Raven Sanchez, Alice Bag, and Amina Cruz
Organized in conjunction with Raven Sanchez: Así Sea / So Be It, this panel discussion brings together featured artist Raven Sanchez, punk singer Alice Bag, and photographer Amina Cruz, whose shared roots in East L.A. and connections to Chicanx culture deeply influence each of their creative practices. Across disciplines, these visionary artists document, embody, and interpret the social and political fabrics of their upbringings, while pushing the bounds of their chosen mediums. Their work carries personal and collective histories, while expanding the proverbial archive to embrace that which is ephemeral, alive, and becoming. Moderated by ICA LA Curatorial Associate Emilia Shaffer-Del Valle, this intergenerational conversation between Sanchez, Bag, and Cruz will reflect on place and community as integral catalysts in their life and work.
Raven Sanchez is a multidisciplinary artist from Los Angeles exploring memory and place through painting, sculpture, and process-based works. Sanchez’s art practice focuses on domestic labor and ancestral memory as it is held in the body and in materials. Incorporating elements such as charcoal, sand, rocks, iron, plants, and dried organic matter, she uses the process of rubbing as a way to activate and deepen her examination of fragmentation, loss, abstraction, and vignettes of family. Sanchez studied Sociology and Latin American Studies at the University of San Francisco and has pursued art-making outside of institutional frameworks through artist-run and community spaces in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Sanchez currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Alice Bag is a singer/songwriter, musician, author, artist, educator and feminist. As lead singer and co-founder of The Bags, one of the first bands to form during the initial wave of punk in Los Angeles, she was featured in the seminal documentary on punk rock, The Decline of Western Civilization. She is the author of the critically acclaimed books Violence Girl - From East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, A Chicana Punk Story and Pipe Bomb For the Soul. Her self-titled 2016 debut album was named one of the best albums of the year by AllMusic and Pitchfork. Her second album, Blueprint, was released in Spring 2018 and was named one of the “Best Albums of 2018” by AllMusic, NPR and the Los Angeles Times. In 2018, Alice was officially recognized by the City of Los Angeles for her “profound influence on music and the punk rock scene in Los Angeles and her activism for the LGBTQ community and speaking out against social injustice.”
Amina Cruz is an artist born and raised in Los Angeles, CA and teen years in Tampa, FL. She hitchhiked around the country before deciding to move to New York City, where she earned her BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design. She also holds a MFA from University of California, Los Angeles.
Cruz’s photographs are utopias and landscapes filled with conversations, power, relationships, memories, joy, and fantasies that you can feel. Her interests are based in queer culture, film/analog photography, and exploring the space between transformation and identity. Her work has been exhibited at MOCA Tucson, San Diego Art Institute, Creative Center for Photography, The Getty, and galleries throughout the country. Cruz’s work is held in various private collections and institutions, including Loyola Marymount University, University of California, Santa Barbra, and The Getty.
