3B Collective: Highways & Byways
October 23rd - December 11th, 2021
With the current conversation around the environment, systemic racism, and monuments along with unseen labor, this exhibition uses massive infrastructure projects like freeways and megadevelopments as the nexus in addressing issues of erasure and equity in our communities. We look at the parallel histories of various Los Angeles communities that have become the victims of “progress” and the aesthetics that arise from colonialism, concrete, cultural iconography, and lowrider custom car culture. The connection between urban renewal and gentrification is undisputed. The works presented serve to facilitate a visual conversation between the works and the viewer with their disparate cultural iconography and representations of urban landscapes. The relationship that develops between the aesthetics that arise from urban renewal, and megadevelopments questioning both the construction of these icons, structures, and stadiums and what lies beneath them both physically and ideologically.
Drawn at dawn over bridgesBeyond the barricades and ricochetsBeneath the broken concreteThere, embedded in the ancestral clayWe find our way. On railways, in subwaysEven on the toxic LAX runwaysDown alleys and amongst the eliteBetween jails and chemtrailsWe’ve seen what is underway. Despite convictions and evictionsInterspersed in the fraying layers of histories and paintUndulating between the heat of the streetAmongst the highways & bywaysWe find a way.
Installation Images
About the Collective
3B is a collective of artists and designers that along with producing individual works, create site-specific installations, public artworks, and murals. All of the collective members come from immigrant and indigenous families and are committed to providing a platform for inclusive works which encourage pride and recognition of the different facets in our communities. The collective’s work addresses social inequities by creating public works that would not be possible as individuals, sharing resources, and providing peer support. Members of the 3B Collective that will contribute to Highways & Byways include Alfredo Diaz, Aaron Estrada, Michael Khosravifard, Gustavo Martinez and Oscar Magallanes.