Without A Car in The World
Without A Car In The World
100 Car-less Angelenos Telling Stories of Living in LA
Diane Meyer
October 17 – December 11, 2009
ABOUT WITHOUT A CAR IN THE WORLD
For the fourth and final installment of Almost Utopia, the gallery at 18th Street Arts Center will be dedicated to an unprecedented investigation of 100 Car-Less Angelinos and it will tell their stories of living in Los Angeles.
STATEMENT
I live in Los Angeles and I ride the bus. I’ve been taking the bus since January 2008 when I did what most Angelenos would consider unthinkable: I got rid of my car….
Lately, when I take the bus, I am often going to meet with other Los Angeles residents who navigate the city without a car. I go by myself, bringing with me on the bus a 4×5 camera, a medium format camera, a tripod, two light stands, two strobe heads, 2 umbrellas, power pack, light meter, tape recorder, film and a book to read on the ride. Sometimes these expeditions make me think of the 19th Century landscape photographers who lugged their gear through mountain passes to document the expansive and mythic Western landscape. These expeditions have ultimately led to the contemporary West- much of which is a manmade landscape reliant on the car culture that created it.
The people that I am photographing are attempting to lead normal lives in this Contemporary West where the automobile functions as the ultimate promise of freedom. I am hoping to ultimately photograph and interview 100 Carless Angelenos. Through the images and text from the interviews, the project will address how car culture has shaped psychological, spatial and geographic perceptions of the city. The subjects I am photographing have given up their cars for a variety of reasons ranging from ideological, financial or health-related situations, anxiety after traumatic car accidents, environmental activism, or a simple disinterest in car culture. By bringing together these various voices through the images and text, the project will ultimately address transportation alternatives. It will also provide a voice to a group of individuals often perceived to be disenfranchised in some way for not having an automobile.
ABOUT DIANE MEYER
Diane Meyer is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Her work has been exhibited at a wide range of venues throughout the United States and Canada including solo exhibitions at AIR Gallery, NYC; and the Society of Contemporary Photography, Kansas City; and group exhibitions at The Bronx Museum of Art, NYC; Jessica Murray Projects, NYC; Jen Bekman Gallery, NYC; Spaces, Cleveland; Arthouse, Austin; Cuchifritos Gallery, NYC; Lennox Contemporary, Toronto; Rotunda Gallery, NYC; Fox Gallery, Phildephia; and others. She has been an artist in residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Smack Mellon, and the CUE Art Foundation. She was a previous artist in residence at the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. She recently gave up her car and is navigating the city using a combination of walking, biking, and taking the bus.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
All Public Discussions will take place at 18th Street Arts Center in the main gallery unless otherwise noted. The schedule is as follows (please stay posted to our website for any changes in scheduling and/or change with public speakers:
November 6, 9:00PM
“HOW FAR TO GO: Alternative Transportation in the Santa Monica Area” with RIDE-Arc
How can we get from point A to point B? Is this really a “Bronze” level city? Where does this city end, anyway? Why is there so much traffic? What about pedestrians? Can people stop walking on the bike path?!?!
Join RIDE-Arc for a 16 mile route through Santa Monica and vicinity as we discuss issues of transportation, access, and urban planning.
This ride is being held in conjunction with Diane Meyer’s exhibition of works “Without a Car in the World” at the 18th Street Gallery in Santa Monica.
RIDE-INFO: A majority of this ride will be at a slight incline. Whether you are heading up or down this slight incline is something else entirely. A portion of this ride will include a short uphill section on a “narrow” street with low lighting conditions, please be prepared for this. For various reasons which we will not be getting into, riding as a group in the City of Santa Monica has at times been known to be under intense scrutiny from the Santa Monica Police Department. Please obey all traffic laws and have adequate lighting for your bicycle. As this ride is in conjunction with the 18th Street Gallery, you will be required to sign a liability release prior to the ride’s start. Thank you for working with us to make this happen!
We will meet up between 9:00 and 9:30pm, we’ll try to head out around 9:30 pm. The route will end where it begins, just like life.
November 11, 6pm
This event will be a roundtable discussion on how to live a car-less or car-free lifestyle for those interested in using their car less or even getting rid of it entirely.
with Siel, writer and blogger, LA Green Girl http://greenlagirl.com
Chris Balish, journalist and author of How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breathe Easier and Get More Mileage Out of Life
Paula Hess, Magazine Editor and Single Mom
Panel: Walking in LA, 7pm
Cees Nooteboom once wrote of LA, “In a city with streets longer than fifty kilometers, the measure of one foot is absurd, and so is the use of one’s feet as a means of transportation.” Taking it’s name from the Missing Person’s song which claims that ‘Nobody Walks in LA,’ this panel discussion will explore the social, spatial, and psychological aspects of walking in Los Angeles.
With:
Anastasia Loukeiras-Sideris, Professor and Department Chair, UCLA Department of Urban Planning
Herbert Medina, Professor, Department of Mathematics, Loyola Marymount University
Nigel Raab, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Loyola Marymount University,
DJ Waldie, author Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir
Damon Willick, Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, Loyola Marymount University
November 14, 2pm
“Transportation and the Future of Los Angeles”
a panel discussion with:
Browne Molyneux, Journalist and Blogger, Shame Train LA
Claude Willey, Artist, Urbanist and Educator, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, California State University, Northridge
Others to be confirmed
December 2 7:00pm
Mass Transit Themed Comedy Show with
Kristina Wong (www.kristinawong.com)
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