Community Engagement through Youth Artivism: SHG and The Stop the Gondola Campaign
By Natalie Godinez
For the past few months, Self Help Graphics has been involved in the Stop the Gondola campaign advocating the halt of a privately funded transit development project to build a high-capacity Gondola in the sky that would go through Chinatown, Solano Canyon and the area adjacent to Union Station. The Stop the Gondola coalition is comprised of community residents and community-serving organizations to inform the community about this development quietly making its way through Metro Los Angeles.
SHG commissioned local artist Lalo Alcaraz to create images used by the coalition for the campaign and for an installation in community events and rallies. The images created by Alcaraz, a cartoonist by trade, depict families and homes overshadowed by the Gondola and a reinvention of old movie posters, depicting giant gondolas as monsters and calling them the Invasion of the Gondolas. Self Help Graphics has been active in the campaign through the work of our Youth Artivism Interns, Michelle Montenegro, Danielle del Rosario, and Alegria Lopez. The Artivists met with Alcaraz to provide input on another illustration depicting the monster Gondolas used for a moving billboard during Dodger’s opening day earlier this year.
Image by Lalo Alcaraz
For Dodger’s opening day, we collaborated with organizers from Power LA, Chinatown Community for Equitable Development (CCED), and community members to create a community-led pop-up at the Alpine Recreation Center to inform Chinatown residents about the proposed Gondola and to engage them about issues they care about. Even in the rainy and windy weather, we still engaged people, from senior citizens to children and their families. Juni Wong, an organizer from Power-LA and CCED, purchased food from the long-standing restaurant Hop Woo to share with the community, and SHG’s Youth Artivism Interns debuted a collaborative art installation.
The Artivists took a different approach to the campaign by focusing on uplifting the community’s needs and asks through a series of collaborative art projects. During the pop-up at the Rec Center, they presented a pair of trees where community residents could add their answers to several questions, such as What public projects would you like to see invested in your community? What is a favorite memory you have in LA/Chinatown? What does taking care of LA look like to you?
On May 13, 2023, the Stop the Gondola Coalition hosted a second informational pop-up for Clockshop’s Community and Unity People’s Kite Festival. During the event, several organizers from the coalition shared information about the project and the impact it could have on the community and an opportunity to sign the petition against the development. Phyllis Ling, a Solano Cayon community member who has been part of the campaign from the beginning, created informational posters showcasing the proposed Gondola route and its footprint in the neighborhood. Self Help Graphics hosted a table with the Artivists at the forefront, who debuted a collaborative installation alongside their trees. The installation is an interactive map of the neighborhoods surrounding the proposed Gondola project, where participants can add stickers with services or spaces they would like to see more of in their communities; the stickers had different categories, such as green spaces, education, community spaces, transit, health, and community resources.
SHG Youth Artivism Interns
SHG will continue advocating for the community’s voice to be heard throughout this campaign using art and youth perspectives. To learn more about the campaign and how to get involved, visit stopthegondola.org and make sure to follow @stopthegondola on Instagram and Twitter.
Natalie M Godinez is an artist, mother, educator, and Self Help Graphics & Art’s Community Engagement & Youth Programs Manager.