(Drone footage above of the start of Projecting L.A. 2024 on the south facing wall of the East West Bank Building, shot looking north in Chinatown toward the Pasadena Freeway at the right, and the lights of Elysian Park and Dodger Stadium beyond on the left. Click at the lower right of video for full screen and the full effect.)
I’ve been promising a record of the night, but between my recent under-the-weather-ness, my current travels, and the event’s workload in the aftermath, it had to wait 9 days. But now here it is.
Projecting L.A. 2024 took place on Saturday, April 27, 2024 in a football-field-size parking lot in Downtown Los Angeles’s Chinatown. The second iteration of an event first held in October 2022, it presented 3 stories high and 80 feet wide the hour-long video projection of images and stories, set to music, of some of the highest caliber street, documentary, and news photography available. Among the 32 photographers included through juried selection from an open call and by special invitation numbered Pulitzer Prize winners, photographers from the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily News, the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, the Hollywood motion picture community, and the Street L.A. photo collective. Opening with a recorded welcome from Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, the truly magical evening is estimated to have drawn 3 to 4 times the 2022 outdoor audience, at perhaps 1500-2000 attendees.
“The mission of The L.A. Project photographers is to document our changing city during a dynamic and challenging time in its history and share the work in innovative ways.”
The event was the latest dream of Julia Dean, whose images readers have been seen here on planet Vitruvius several times before. Beginning her career as a 20-year-old apprentice (the last) to legendary photographer Berenice Abbot, Julia wandered the globe shooting independently for relief groups and religious groups and NGO’s, directed the worldwide Child Labor and the Global Village photo project, then founded the Julia Dean Photo Workshops in Los Angeles and its successor Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP). After more than years 22 years as executive director of LACP, Julia initiated her latest enterprise, The L.A. Project, of which Projecting L.A. is a major endeavor.
The producers of Projecting L.A. are Daniel Sackheim and Joshua Stern. Sackheim is an Emmy Award winning director and producer of such television shows as True Detective, The Americans, Game of Thrones, House, The X-Files, Law and Order, and Miami Vice, among many others. He is co-director with Dean of the Street L.A. photo collective. Stern is a writer and producer who has worked on such television shows as Law & Order, Chicago Hope and Judging Amy, and Showtime’s Resurrection Blvd. A member of the Street L.A collective, he is currently developing a film project on the life of famed photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White. Stern served as music coordinator for Projecting L.A.
The editor of Projecting L.A. 2024 is Marta Evry. Evry’s many credits include The Pacific, The Man in the High Castle, Lovecraft Country, and Justified: City Primeval. She is a member of the Street L.A collective.
The cultural event that is Projecting L.A. 2024 did not end on April 27. Supported by the Los Angeles Public Library, the video will travel to LAPL branch libraries throughout the city for a year to offer additional free screenings, with Dean and selected photographers present to engage with audiences in roundtable Q & A’s. Selections from PLA 2024 will be donated to the Library’s permanent Los Angeles photography collection.
Now, the hour-long video. Dipping toes before a full viewing is allowed — but you may not be able to extract them until after complete bodily immersion. View at full screen setting at least. If you can cast to a flat screen TV, 👍. I have viewed these collections and stories multiple times now, and each time I am more moved by the visions and the very human accounts they offer and by the unique talents of these photographers to gain such trust and enter into such intimate relationship with their subjects. As a final comment, Projecting L.A. is a nonprofit enterprise fiscally sponsored by the 501c3 Creative Visions. All donations are tax deductible, and philanthropic, foundation, and corporate sponsorships are sought for the future to support the continuing life the project.
Watch:
AJA for JD
Writing that dares, thinking that delves deep, emotional explorations that range. Become a paid subscriber of Homo Vitruvius today. You’ll get access to the full archive, Recs & Revs posts, the Magellanic Diaries, Extraordinary Ordinary People, and A Reader’s Review. You’ll also have access to a free digital download of Waiting for Word and the opportunity to purchase signed hard copies of Waiting for Word and Footnote.
Poet. Storyteller. Dramatist. Essayist. Artificer.
“Not just words about the ideas but the words themselves.”
Wow! Kudos to an amazing group of creatives. I would have loved to have seen this in person. Julia rocks. Jay, thank you so much for making the video available.
Jay, this is brilliant. I have no connection to L.A. but I really felt this. The raw humanity is beautiful and allows one to develop empathy for those with different experiences. Very cool.