Almost two decades ago, while she was an architecture student at El Camino College, Lauren Halsey began conceiving a sculpture park for South Central, the Los Angeles neighborhood where she grew up. At long last, that sculpture park has finally arrived and is now open to the public.
Curated by Christine Y. Kim and organized by the arts organization Los Angeles Nomadic Division, the park is officially titled sister dreamer lauren halsey’s architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles. It is in many ways the grandest expression to Halsey’s desire to meld past and present in the hope of creating a future in which “Black people can experience themselves differently and not feel weighed down by some of the oppressive forces,” as she once put it.
Halsey has exhibited projects elsewhere, most notably at the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. biennial in 2018, where she took the top honors. Presentations on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and outside the Arsenale during the 2024 Venice Biennale followed. But unlike those projects, sister dreamer is free to the public and not held within the confines of an art institution. It is meant to be for the community, by one of its members.
Below, take a look inside the sculpture park.
