Meet Lana Zimmerman, SHG's 'Sinks: Places We Call Home' PST Art x Science Initiative Curatorial Research Assistant
By: Lana Zimmerman
As I sat in my first sustainability class, I did not know what to expect. As a new university student, I vaguely understood the urgency of the climate emergency, but I struggled to connect the reality of everyday life with the high-level thinking presented in college classrooms. Like many first-generation college students, I felt like I did not have access to larger conversations surrounding sustainability and environmental science that intellectualized the life experiences of so many of us living throughout Los Angeles. However, I found that my first sustainability class provided both the vocabulary to verbalize environmental injustice issues in Los Angeles and the impetus to get involved in local environmental rights movements.
Following my graduation from California State University, Northridge, I discovered Self Help Graphics’ (SHG) Pacific Standard Time initiative. I am honored to have been trusted with the position of curatorial research assistant for this project. Within my position, I assist the SHG artists, Maru García and Beatriz Jaramillo, who uplift the voices of advocates fighting for justice within the communities in and around Vernon and Willowbrook, both primarily BIPOC neighborhoods disproportionately burdened with the effects of corporate pollution. Our work for this exhibit combines activism, scientific analysis, and, most importantly, listening to community members in the various regions affected by these environmental hazards. In this process, we have been researching the history of the regions and conducting site visits to connect past and present stories and to weave a cohesive narrative for the communities through the lens of environmental justice.
L-R: Lana Zimmerman, Marvella Muro, George Evans, Reginald Johnson, and Beatriz Jaramillo visit Earvin "Magic" Johnson Recreation Area in Willowbrook, California. Before the park was built, the Athens Tank Farm was housed on this land.
When discussing sustainability and environmental justice, conversations can at times dissolve into a doomsday framework. However, this line of thinking dismisses the work of activists facilitating environmental movements across the globe. Community organizers worldwide have used grassroots activism to achieve greater safety in their communities and to fight back against powerful corporate polluters. These leaders and movements show that the future of environmental justice is now: we live in a time of creativity and community that is fostering a safer world for communities of color and the people most affected by climate injustice.
Through my work, I have found that environmental justice is creative, accessible, and powerful. In a city where BIPOC communities have been repeatedly failed by local leaders, policy initiatives, and resistant bureaucracies, art and expression become a means to an end. Creative solutions flourish as we work toward a safer future for the City of Los Angeles and our global commons.
Lana Zimmerman is the Self Help Graphics & Art’s Curatorial Assistant for Sinks: Places We Call Home, for Getty’s PST Art x Science initiative.