Interview with Craig Arteaga-Johnson, director of exhibitions and programs, Side Street Projects

By Ferdinand Lewis

[Interviewer’s note: Side Street Projects is a community arts organization that housed and made in-kind donations to LAPD’s play "Agents and Assets." At the time of this research, Side Street was relatively new to Skid Row, having just moved in from the affluent coastal suburb of Santa Monica, and Arteaga-Johnson was frank about their initial inability to align their purpose with the needs of the neighborhood. Because the benefits to both parties is so clear, the Side Street/LAPD collaboration on "Agents and Assets" is an excellent model of an effective "partnering" between a grassroots ensemble and a community organization. – F.L.]

Ferdinand Lewis: Can you tell me a little about the story of this partnership with LAPD?

Craig Arteaga-Johnson: Basically, this building space used to be the headquarters for the things across the street. We needed temporary office space, they were touring us around their buildings and we saw this space. We said, "Well, what are you doing with this space?" He said, "Nothing; we might tear it out of something." We said, "Well, why don’t you let us turn it into a performance space?" He agreed, for the time being, to let us use it. We brought in a number of local artists to be a curatorial committee to manage the space. They started to spread the word about it. I’m not exactly sure how LAPD got the word but LAPD is very well known among the performance community and John Malpede is known to a number of people on our board, a number of people on the committee. Somehow he just found out about the space and came to look at it and I think that he felt that it would be appropriate for this specific project. An old corporate boardroom is the location for the project. So, he began working with people on the committee. We accept proposals from anyone and if the people on the committee are interested in the project, we collaborate to make it happen. The committee was very excited about working with LAPD. It’s actually gone very smoothly because they really came in with their own press apparatus.

FL: Production as well?

CAJ: Production and everything. It was really just a matter of us working with them on some specifics for the event.

FL: You’ve worked with other theater companies?

CAJ: We’ve worked with a couple of other kind of specific production groups, but most of the space has been used for music performance, some spoken-word stuff. There haven’t really been other theater companies using it. And that’s been an issue that we’ve been talking about; maybe we need to partner with a theater group to have the space be more active, we really don’t know.

FL: Ya’ll are going to keep it?

CAJ: We’re hoping to. There’s really the question of making sure that the place is able to support an operation that’s maybe not as profitable as renting the space out to or renting the building out to a dot-com company or something like that. For the time being, while this neighborhood is still very much in development, these office buildings aren’t as in demand. There’s the good and bad of that for us. The good is that it’s in the interest of the landlord, certainly, to give us access to the space just to have it in use and have us bringing people down here and give his tenants shows to go to in the neighborhood. And because the neighborhood is still very much in development, he’s not getting people offering him a lot of money for the space. It’s better for us if there’s tons of people in the neighborhood, meaning more audience, meaning more attention, but all of a sudden are we going to be in a higher profile area where companies that are very much for-profit will be offering more money for the space? That’s what we don’t know. Because the way we operate, an artist-run nonprofit whose main goal is to help professional artists in the making and the showing of their work, it’s hard for us to compete when it comes to just pure dollars.

FL: What sorts of partnerships do you look for?

CAJ: Side Street started in Santa Monica about eight years ago and moved downtown this last year. As far as Side Street’s history, it’s mostly partnered with individual artists. But there has been a history of partnering with other arts organizations. Another partnership that we’ve formed recently is with Los Angeles Center for Photographic Study, LACPS, which is one of the oldest and most respected photographic arts organizations in L.A. They’d lost the space that they had in Hollywood and they were on the brink of not knowing whether to continue, so we’ve been able to provide them with office space here. The show that’s in the gallery now is the first show that they’ve produced since the end of 1999. So, that’s a great partnership in that it helps them continue and it also helps us provide some exhibitions in our gallery.

FL: So, your goal then as a partner is to enable your partner to exhibit?

CAJ: Typically.

FL: And provide venues.

CAJ: Provide venues, and there’s so much that’s gained from partnerships. Another reason that the partnership with LAPD has been very successful is in moving from Santa Monica to downtown, we found that there was a lot of very healthy questioning: If you’re an arts organization moving to the Skid Row area of downtown, what is your relationship going to be with the people who are already here? What’s gonna be your relationship to the homeless community or the single-room-occupancy community?

FL: Were you looking for that relationship?

CAJ: One of the reasons that Side Street Projects was very interested in this part of town was the possibility of working with a wider range of people and attracting a new audience. The reality is that, in the transition, we haven’t had the sort of resources needed to really reach out and connect with a lot of the population here. Our mailing list is still based on the audience we had in Santa Monica and it takes a lot of resources to really reach out, educate people about what you’re doing and involve them. So, anytime we can form partnerships with an organization or a group like LAPD that already has those relationships, it allows us to send the message very efficiently to the local community that we’re interested in being involved with groups in this immediate neighborhood. We have people who are responding to us saying, "Well, you have this gallery, you have this space, you guys must be this million-dollar operation with tons of staff. Why aren’t you reaching out to the local community?" and the reality is we have a staff of about three and we’re just still trying to get our office set up and we haven’t had time yet. We want to partner with local groups, but in order for that to happen, local groups are also going to have to approach us and we’re gonna have to form a partnership. So, LAPD is an example of a group that involves the people who live in this neighborhood and really interests the people that live in this neighborhood and it’s a great way for us to open our doors to those people and begin to form partnerships with them as well.

FL: Have you seen this partner, have you seen LAPD’s interaction with its community and vice versa?

CAJ: Just in this project alone.

FL: Have you been able to see any effects of this project?

CAJ: The impact it has for us is simply that the audience they’re attracting has a larger percentage of people from this neighborhood than typically attend the other projects we’ve done here. What we’re bringing into this neighborhood up until now has been a group of performers and events that most of the people in this immediate neighborhood I don’t think are very familiar with. LAPD – not only are their cast members often residents or have relationships with people in this neighborhood, but also themselves as a production company have an identity in the neighborhood. So, it just really helps us expand, get those people to know about us so that the next time we present something, their response might be, "Oh, I went there and saw LAPD, so now I’m familiar with that venue, I feel comfortable going to that venue now that I’ve been there before."

FL: And the impact from that community. What’s the impact of that community’s traffic through your doors now?

CAJ: I think it’s a little early to know. The thing that’s interesting for me is as an arts organization – you’re always trying to find a balance between offering a wide range of diverse programs that is characterized by diversity, while also balancing that with having programming that’s characterized by relevance for your community and your audience. There’s always something you’re trying to balance, meaning there’s a lot of community art groups in this neighborhood that have approached us about showing work in our gallery or doing projects in our performing space. We have to try to balance the relevance of the project they bring while also trying to provide diversity programming that involves the people who have historically been the mainstay of Side Street projects, which are professional artists from the westside, as well as the rest of the city, as well as internationally. So, for instance, the next show in our gallery is going to be a exhibition by an international collaborative group who are from Australia, Britain and Canada. The question when they bring in that project, we have to say, "Okay, is there a relevance to where we are now?" Here are people who live next door to us who want to use our gallery space for a performance project and do something that has a direct relevance. It was interesting Thursday night, when the performance was done here and there was a panel discussion afterwards, the issue was on how new drug laws are going to affect L.A.’s population, and knowing that this neighborhood is home to not only a number of drug users but people who are drug sellers, the police are working here, fighting the drug war or supposedly fighting the drug war.

FL: The "recovery community?"

CAJ: The recovery community is here. People just have their families affected by drug use in this neighborhood.

FL: Your curatorial eye and your community-outreach eye are the same with this project?

CAJ: Right, and that’s the thing that’s really powerful about this project – having it where the audience who this project attracted who were asking questions of the panelists, not out of some abstract interest but of direct interest, because they were saying, "Well, I’m interested in this new law because my father’s gonna be dealing with this issue."

FL: "It’s my life..."

CAJ: So, that’s been the most interesting thing, having the issue of relevance be answered so clearly and succinctly by this project, where in other projects we do, it’s not answered as clearly, because maybe other issues come with those projects.

Ferdinand Lewis is a founding member of The Ghost Road Company, an educator, writer and theater artist. He is currently at work on two books: "Ensemble Theater: An Anthology" and "Ensemble Theater: Traditions, Approaches, Strategies." He lives in Los Angeles.

PERFORMING COMMUNITIES
Carpetbag | Cornerstone | Dell'Arte | Jump-Start
LAPD | Pregones | Roadside | WagonBurner
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