This Land

This Land

Digital videos, Thomas Guide map and vinyl, 2022

The Tongva people inhabited Southern California for thousands of years before the Spanish government “granted” 35 square miles of land to one of its soldiers in 1874.  The Rancho San Rafael was so large that it encompassed what are now parts of Los Angeles, Glendale, Burbank, and Pasadena.  For this project, a mix of local youth that ranged from Dreamers to 3rd generation Californians simulated the process of measuring the rancho boundaries as the grantees themselves had first done, by using stretched lengths of lariats as measurement tools at locations along the rancho’s perimeter.