{"id":2324475,"date":"2026-03-12T10:13:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T10:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2324475"},"modified":"2026-03-12T10:13:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T10:13:49","slug":"lauren-halseys-sister-dreamer-sculpture-park-opens-in-south-l-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/lauren-halseys-sister-dreamer-sculpture-park-opens-in-south-l-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Lauren Halsey’s ‘sister dreamer’ sculpture park opens in South L.A."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Artist Lauren Halsey has built an architectural monument to South Los Angeles \u2014 its past, present and future.<\/p>\n

Her sculpture park, titled \u201c<\/i>sister dreamer lauren halsey\u2019s architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles,\u201d<\/i> opens with a block party Saturday on the corner of Western Avenue and 76th Street.<\/p>\n

Part meeting place, outdoor classroom and recreation space, \u201csister dreamer\u201d features eight Egyptian-style Hathoric columns standing nearly 22 feet tall, on which Halsey has swapped the ancient goddess for \u201chyperlocal\u201d heroes, mentors and family members alongside sphinxes and carved reliefs. The sculptures stand as both witnesses and deities.<\/p>\n

A large open-air square, which Halsey calls an oculus, contains carvings of neighborhood landmarks, faces, signs and symbols. Fountains, benches and native plants, along with vegetable and fruit gardens, sit behind a gate, giving the space a sense of calm despite the traffic nearby.<\/p>\n

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Lauren Halsey\u2019s \u2018sister dreamer\u2019 sculpture park in South Los Angeles contains sphinxes and carved reliefs alongside Egyptian-style Hathoric columns featuring faces of Halsey\u2019s mentors and family members.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The title of the park, which will likely move to a more permanent location in 2027, hints at its feminist underpinnings.<\/p>\n

An entrance to the park\u2019s central oculus features images honoring female victims of Lonnie David Franklin Jr., known as the Grim Sleeper, a serial killer responsible for the murders of at least 10 Black women in Los Angeles in the 1980s and the early aughts.<\/p>\n

Halsey said the women\u2019s identities were reduced to billboard images during the investigation of their deaths.<\/p>\n

The monument seeks to restore dignity to their memory while also celebrating community leaders such as Margaret Prescod, founder of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, Robin Daniels of the nonprofit Sisters of Watts, and Rosie Lee Hooks, director of the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus.<\/p>\n

State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), who helped establish the Historic South Los Angeles Black Cultural District where the park sits, sees the project as a rare feminist monument.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so few [monuments and parks] dedicated to women,\u201d she said. \u201cI would suspect that every good feminist around the world will want to come and spend some time there to really take in that energy and to be restored by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lauren Halsey\u2019s \u2018sister dreamer\u2019 sculpture park in South Los Angeles features a central oculus honoring victims of the serial killer Lonnie David Franklin Jr., known as the Grim Sleeper, responsible for the murders of at least 10 Black women in L.A. in the 1980s and early aughts.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The project is the culmination of an idea about creating a tribute to her community that Halsey began developing nearly two decades ago while studying architecture at El Camino College. She later attended the California Institute of the Arts and earned an MFA from Yale University, going on to exhibit internationally. But she never forgot her her hometown.<\/p>\n

Her aim, Halsey said, is to preserve the history of the neighborhood where she grew up while empowering its residents through education, cultural programming and contemplation.<\/p>\n

Gentrification has resulted in dramatic change in South L.A. since Halsey first conceived the park, but she says the monument is less about resistance than inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t a eulogy for South-Central. \u2026 This isn\u2019t about who we were. It\u2019s very aspirational,\u201d Halsey said during an interview at the park days before its official opening.<\/p>\n

It is, she added, of the \u201cright now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n
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The public sculpture park in South-Central Los Angeles will host a variety of public programs including readings, educational gatherings and film screenings.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Halsey chose the location deliberately \u2014 it was once home to Gwen\u2019s Ice Cream, a beloved neighborhood spot that closed after a fire in the mid-2010s and remained vacant for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I realized I could envision this project and actually make it happen, this lot felt really right,\u201d Halsey said.<\/p>\n

Halsey\u2019s nonprofit, Summaeverythang Community Center, will organize programming at the park around three pillars: art, education and wellness. Plans include film screenings, lectures, tutoring, youth workshops and community events.<\/p>\n

A partnership with the Broad museum will bring local students to the site for art workshops and educational programs.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who represents the park\u2019s district, said Halsey\u2019s work reflects a global \u201cBlack renaissance\u201d in art.<\/p>\n

He described \u201csister dreamer\u201d as the \u201cfirst tangible installation at this scale of the work coming out of this period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harris-Dawson is also helping oversee the development of Destination Crenshaw, a nearby 1.3-mile open-air museum and cultural corridor. \u201dsister dreamer\u201d joins the area\u2019s artistic milieu in advance of another long-planned project by artist Fulton Leroy Washington \u2014 Mr. Wash \u2014 who is raising funds for a 13,000-square-foot campus called Art By Wash Studio & Community Center that is scheduled to open in 2028.<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n
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Lauren Halsey chose to locate her public sculpture park, \u201csister dreamer,\u201d where a beloved neighborhood ice cream shop once stood.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Taken together, these projects demonstrate what artists can accomplish outside of traditional institutional frameworks.<\/p>\n

Laura Hyatt, director of the presenting nonprofit organization Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), said roughly half of the funding for the project came from the Mellon Foundation\u2019s Monuments Project<\/u><\/a>, with the rest raised from other foundations and private donors. LAND and Halsey\u2019s representatives declined to give the project\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

Halsey sought independent funding in order to maintain creative control.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted for once in my career to make work where I can think about who I\u2019m making the work for and why,\u201d she said. \u201cI have the keys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hyatt said the project\u2019s size surprised even those involved in producing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think any of us understood at the outset what magnitude that would be,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s really all a testament to Lauren and the relationships she\u2019s forged in her neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A <\/picture>\n
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Lauren Halsey will use her community nonprofit to schedule the public programming at \u201csister dreamer.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201csister dreamer\u201d builds on earlier iterations of Halsey\u2019s explorations of classical architecture, including installations at the Studio Museum in Harlem <\/u><\/a>in 2015, at the Hammer Museum<\/u><\/a> in Los Angeles in 2018 and on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/u><\/a> in New York in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used the art world as a stage to test the proof of concepts and prototypes,\u201d Halsey said.<\/p>\n

The project\u2019s curator, Christine Y. Kim, said \u201csister dreamer\u201d gained momentum during the pandemic, when the need for public gathering spaces became urgent.<\/p>\n

The park will be open Wednesday through Sunday from sunrise to sunset.<\/p>\n

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\"Plants <\/picture>\n
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Native plants, along with vegetable and fruit gardens, are part of the plan for Lauren Halsey\u2019s monumental public sculpture park in South-Central Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Community members are already welcoming the new landmark.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have libraries. We have temples, churches, schools and some local art institutions, but we don\u2019t have essentially a public place, a literal form that represents all these things,\u201d said Zaakiyah Brisker, founder of the South Central Run Club.<\/p>\n

Marvin Valencia, co-founder of South Central Clips, which documents South Los Angeles life on Instagram and TikTok, said Halsey\u2019s project resonates because it comes from someone rooted in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than when someone from the community does things for [it], as opposed to outsiders coming in and shaping it,\u201d Valencia said. \u201cShe\u2019s bringing culture from other places and mixing it with what South-Central already has to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim said \u201csister dreamer\u201d offers a different vision of what public memorials can be.<\/p>\n

\u201cMonuments are intended to valorize battles and generals,\u201d she said. \u201cThis particular monument is really about saying, for the people of the neighborhood: We are here. We have been here. And this is our representation of the joy and beauty of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist Lauren Halsey has built an architectural monument to South Los Angeles \u2014 its past, present and future. Her sculpture park, titled \u201csister dreamer lauren halsey\u2019s architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles,\u201d opens with a block party Saturday on the corner of Western Avenue and 76th Street. Part meeting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2324476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2324475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Lauren-Halseys-sister-dreamer-sculpture-park-opens-in-South-LA.com2Ffc2F302F8fb11258486d99273d95ad09.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2324475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2324477,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2324475\/revisions\/2324477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2324476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2324475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2324475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2324475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}