Laboratory for the Future: Arianne Edmonds, Kim Schoenstadt & Debra Scacco

Join artist Debra Scacco for a conversation and pop-up installation within her exhibition, Laboratory for the Future, exploring the themes of censorship, language, and creative resilience.

Scacco invites participants to join her for a meet-the-author, book signing and conversation with Arianne Edmonds and Kim Schoenstadt, exploring the importance of resisting historical erasure and creating a blueprint for action through Edmonds’ new book, . The first ten attendees will receive a free copy of the book!

Debra Scacco’s presents this collaborative action with The J.L. Edmonds Project / Arianne Edmonds and Now Be Here / Kim Schoenstadt to confront the language of erasure and celebrate the resilience of expression as part of the nationwide self-organized artist initiative Fall of Freedom.

12:00 PM

• Meet the author & book signing

12:30 PM

• Conversation: Arianne Edmonds & Kim Schoenstadt
  “We Now Belong to Ourselves, J.L. Edmonds, The Black Press, and Black Citizenship in America”

12-2 PM

• Magnetic poetry activity featuring banned words from PEN America's current list
• Screening of Zoe Leonard’s “I Want a President", with Mykki Blanco reading. A film by Adinah Dancyger (on view 11/21-11/22, 12-5pm).
• 'Laboratory for the Future' exhibit open throughout.

Throughout the day, a special installation will center around words drawn from PEN America’s current list of terms banned by the federal administration, displayed on banners and a magnetic poetry board. Visitors are invited to compose and share their banned word poetry with the community and on social media.

A screening of Zoe Leonard’s “I Want a President”, a poem created in support of American poet and activist Eileen Myles’ 1992 presidential campaign, as read by Mykki Blanco and filmed by Adinah Dancyger will be screened.

BIOS

Arianne Edmonds is a fifth-generation Angeleno, and founder of the J.L. Edmonds Project, an initiative dedicated to preserving and sharing the histories of Black communities in the American West. Her archival and cultural contributions have been featured in The New York Times’ 1619 Project, The Root, and LA Weekly, and she has presented her research at institutions including the Hammer Museum, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the LA Department of Cultural Affairs. Arianne is a former Commissioner of the Los Angeles Public Library and currently a Senior Civic Media Fellow at USC Annenberg. “We Now Belong to Ourselves, J.L. Edmonds, The Black Press, and Black Citizenship in America” weaves together poetry, personal narrative, and never-before-seen documents from the Jefferson Lewis Edmonds' family archive, Arianne Edmonds provides a wide-ranging look at how the Black Press of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries defined Black citizenship after Reconstruction, fostered networks of resistance, and set in motion critical social justice narratives that are still relevant today.

emerged from artist Debra Scacco’s two-year tenure as the inaugural artist-in-residence within the City of Santa Monica City Yards (Public Works Department). Her work at the intersection of ecology, culture and history has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Getty Foundation, Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, and many others. In 2023-24 she was awarded a City of Los Angeles Individual Master Artist Fellowship. Scacco is the co-founder of ground-breaking Getty PST ART Climate Impact Program (2022-25), was co-director of Getty PST ART project Brackish Water Los Angeles at California State University Dominguez Hills, and is featured in the corresponding PBS documentary Art & Science Collide.

Kim Schoenstadt is a Los Angeles–based artist whose work sits at the intersection of architecture, historical research, and feminist inquiry. Schoenstadt is the primary organizer of , an initiative that began with a groundbreaking photograph uniting nearly 1,000 women-identifying and non-binary artists in Los Angeles. This historic image, the largest group portrait of its kind, sparked international press about artists often excluded from exhibitions and collections. Her work has been featured in solo and two-person exhibitions at institutions including ArtCenter College of Design; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, NL; the BYU Museum of Art, Provo, UT; and the Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA. She is the recipient of the Volta/Bahamar Art Prize (2018), the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2013), and the Catherine Doctorow Prize (2011).

Laboratory for the future events:

Laboratory for the Future is a project of City Yards Artist in Residence Debra Scacco, made possible by the city of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs Division and Percent for Art program, and the city of Santa Monica Public Works Department. More about the project here.

The Laboratory for the Future exhibit is on view at the Airport Arts Center Propeller Gallery, 3026 Airport Ave. 10/11/25 - 1/4/26, hours: Thursday - Sunday, 12-5pm.

10/11/25, 12-3pm: Opening Reception for Laboratory for the Future exhibit, Propeller Gallery

10/18/25, 11am-12:30pm: Composting session, following the 9-11am “Oh My Gourd” event and garden exploration, Ishihara Park Learning Garden, 2909 Exposition Blvd.

10/25/25, 12-2pm: Flow and Form: The Invisible Systems of Santa Monica, an artist talk and exhibit walkthrough with Debra Scacco, Propeller Gallery

11/1/25, 12-1:30pm: Woven Waters: Protection, Resistance, Renewal, a conversation with Emma Robbins (Diné Water Activist & Artist) and Debra Scacco, Propeller Gallery

11/22/25, 12-2pm: Popup installation and drop-by conversation with Debra Scacco, Propeller Gallery

1/3/26, 12-2pm: Exhibit closing event with Debra Scacco, Propeller Gallery

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The Propeller Gallery at the Airport Arts Center, 3026 Airport Ave, hosts exhibitions and events throughout the year. By Bus, closest stop is Metro 44 SMC Bundy Campus, more frequent is Metro 14 at Airport and Bundy. Parking available onsite. Programs at Airport Arts Center are made possible by the Recreation and Arts Department.

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