About Us
Preserving Sacred Imagery
The Psychological Shock Of Gentrification
The Psychological Shock Of Gentrification
Restorative Justice for the Arts (RJFTA) was mobilized to preserve murals and sacred imagery, cultivate decolonial pedagogies of creativity, and protect the cultural identities narrated through community art. This grassroots community organization aims to educate communities on how to protect their art using federal, state and local laws,
Restorative Justice for the Arts (RJFTA) was mobilized to preserve murals and sacred imagery, cultivate decolonial pedagogies of creativity, and protect the cultural identities narrated through community art. This grassroots community organization aims to educate communities on how to protect their art using federal, state and local laws, the importance of preserving sacred Indigenous murals and community art as to empower marginalized and displaced communities. By utilizing an arts based facet of reconciliation and reparations (restoration) and restorative justice practices, our mission is to help remediate and heal the historical trauma of native peoples’ misrepresentation or total lack of representation (ghosting) in the artistic, political, and social justice arenas.
The Psychological Shock Of Gentrification
The Psychological Shock Of Gentrification
The Psychological Shock Of Gentrification
The Center for Disease Control (2009) problematizes gentrification “as the transformation of neighborhoods from low to high value,” causing “a housing, economic and health issue that affects a community’s history, culture and reduces social capital.” The level of discrimination and blatant racism being propagated under the guise of neolib
The Center for Disease Control (2009) problematizes gentrification “as the transformation of neighborhoods from low to high value,” causing “a housing, economic and health issue that affects a community’s history, culture and reduces social capital.” The level of discrimination and blatant racism being propagated under the guise of neoliberalism and its ideas of “progress,” has single handedly contributed to the mass chronic homelessness crisis we are seeing in Los Angeles and across the nation in all major cities experiencing the bi-products of gentrification. Gentrification affects every aspect of its land, community, and environment. It brings forth the death and destruction of our city’s working class neighborhoods. The gentrification of our communities reflects a history of racist and classist organizations and policies that have historically contributed to the eradication and displacement that our communities of color have continued to face. Gentrification leaves communities of color at risk of losing their physical homes, businesses, community art monuments, sacred sites and support systems that give them a sense of meaning and belonging. With these threats the experience of collective trauma grows deeper and deeper everyday. As a trauma informed woman of color surviving gentrification, I have the education and training to understand trauma in many contexts. Due to the fact that I personally experience this kind of violence everyday, I am able to identify why we suffer and still struggle from symptoms of complex trauma or Complex Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (C-PTSD) individually and collectively. For us tenants who are facing homelessness and the darker side of gentrification, displacement, and/or eviction, it triggers a more harsh form of trauma that is considered to be complex. Aggressive developers, abusive landlords, and heartless property managers create or heighten situations of captivity and entrapment, a situation lacking an escape route for their victims, which can lead to C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) like symptoms. Complex trauma can occur as a result of experiencing ongoing, repetitive, and prolonged interrelated forms of trauma involving unrelenting harm by a person or relationship with an uneven power dynamic. These symptoms include constant and prolonged feelings of terror, worthlessness, helplessness, and deformation of one's identity and sense of place and self. Experiencing these conditions and violence usually leave tenants in an extremely vulnerable position. As in the example story of a Los Angeles low-income tenant of the population that is dealing with unresolved stress and trauma “her story exemplifies the overwhelming challenge of traumatized people, as well as refugees and undocumented persons, who have limited access to medical and mental health resources.” Furthermore, psychologist Peter Levine, (1997) describes PTSD symptoms as “caused by blocked energy or a ‘freezing response’ in the person. After the fight-flight reaction, if energy has not been resolved or discharged, it remains trapped or “frozen” in the nervous system. Levine theorizes that a threatened human must discharge all the energy mobilized to negotiate that threat or it will become a victim of trauma.”
The psychological shock of gentrification is synonymous with “root shock.” In the book Root Shock, Fullilove (2004) explains that uprooting neighborhoods hurts America because people suffer collective loss…“we lose a massive web of connections—a way of being—that is destroyed by urban renewal” (p. 4) “Root shock” is described as “the traumatic stress reaction to the destruction of all or part of one's emotional ecosystem. It has important parallels to the psychological shock experienced by a person who, as a result of injury, suddenly loses massive amounts of fluids.. such a blow threatens the whole body’s ability to function. When the external system of protection, is damaged, the person will go into root shock. The nervous system attempts to compensate for the imbalance by cutting off circulation to the arms and legs” leaving the body vulnerable to disease (p. 11). When considering root shock, it is important to understand that its effects ripple out beyond those who are most affected. Fullilove goes on to explain that at the level of the individual, “root shock is a profound emotional upheaval that destroys the working model of the world that had existed in the individual’s head. Root shock undermines trust, increases anxiety, destabilizes relationships, destroys social, emotional, and financial resources, and increases the risk for every kind of stress-related disease, from depression to heart attack. On the local community level, “root shock ruptures bonds dispersing people to all directions of the compass.” It disrupts the “ecosystem of emotions, ripping emotional connections in other parts of existence and ultimately shifts the direction of all interpersonal connections.” Many people in low-income communities suffer from root shock and do not have the means or resources to bounce back. In many situations, “the experience of root shock—like the aftermath of a severe burn—does not end with emergency treatment, but will stay with the individual for a lifetime. In fact, the injury from root shock may be even more enduring than a burn, as it can affect generations and generations of people" (pp. 12-17) due to the deep personal and collective trauma caused by this shocking experience. The psychological shock of gentrification leaves those most vulnerable to eviction chronically ill, fatigued, depressed, hopeless, and left to feel that their world has abruptly been taken away. Collectively, as the eviction moratorium is about to be dismantled by corporatocracy, we are now facing an unprecedented tsunami of evictions and mental health crisis never before seen in the history of Los Angeles and other cities experiencing the psychological shock and violence of gentrification.
Written by: Brenda Perez
Art As Medicine
The Psychological Shock Of Gentrification
Art As Medicine
Indigenous art, mythologies and symbols provide deep existential meaning to individuals and communities and consequently are essential in preserving and maintaining cultural health and well-being. Sacred imagery opens “the possibility of learning or remembering history, ancestry, medicine, language, and other forms of ancient knowledge t
Indigenous art, mythologies and symbols provide deep existential meaning to individuals and communities and consequently are essential in preserving and maintaining cultural health and well-being. Sacred imagery opens “the possibility of learning or remembering history, ancestry, medicine, language, and other forms of ancient knowledge through visual culture” (Zepeda, 2015, p. 120). Murals make these images literate for everyone, acting as cracks “through which Indigenous life and knowledge have persisted and thrived despite settlement” (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015, p. 61). Calling back the spirit refers to helping individuals acknowledge and "remember" their ethnic, cultural, spiritual and historical roots. People of color lose hope when they are cut off from their roots. Calling back their spirit helps them become whole, reconnected, full of spirit, and able to return "borne" (Comas-Diaz, in press). A practical illustration of calling back the spirit involves using rituals to enhance healing and transformation. Cultural ritualistic practices are useful in dealing with trauma and addressing low self-esteem (Comas-Diaz, 2003a). Native American psychologists, such as Joseph Gone (2006), say that the suppression of ceremonial practices is the root cause of mental illness, which cannot be cured using the methods from the same cultures behind colonial oppression.
Our community’s art has the power to undo border walls in the psyche. Me and my neighbors look through our murals as windows into the spiritual landscape that gentrifying commercial terrain seek to demolish.
Who We Are
Stop Whitewashing Our Art!
Art As Medicine
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE FOR THE ARTS (RJFTA) is a fundamental force within the grassroots community arts initiative that puts forth Indigenous centered and arts-based methodologies such as community art and mural making. This organization honors and centers Indigenous ways of knowing and being, which provides a platform for Indigenous/First
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE FOR THE ARTS (RJFTA) is a fundamental force within the grassroots community arts initiative that puts forth Indigenous centered and arts-based methodologies such as community art and mural making. This organization honors and centers Indigenous ways of knowing and being, which provides a platform for Indigenous/First Nations/original peoples oral histories and set the stage for their self-determined expression of identity, history and current realities.
Restorative Justice for the Arts investigates gentrification as a form of internal colonialism in the historic Mexican neighborhood of Highland Park, which currently feeds L.A.’s chronic homelessness crisis. RJFTA has expanded its work in other cities around the world that are experiencing the toxic bi-products of gentrification.
Stop Whitewashing Our Art!
Stop Whitewashing Our Art!
Stop Whitewashing Our Art!
Whitewashing cultural murals is a sacrilegious act due to the fact that they contain sacred imagery. Indigenous art, mythologies, legends, and symbols provide deep existential meaning to individuals and communities and consequently are essential in preserving and maintaining cultural health and well-being. Murals make these images literat
Whitewashing cultural murals is a sacrilegious act due to the fact that they contain sacred imagery. Indigenous art, mythologies, legends, and symbols provide deep existential meaning to individuals and communities and consequently are essential in preserving and maintaining cultural health and well-being. Murals make these images literate for everyone. Preventing the erasure of Indigenous murals is the act of preserving Indigenous history. Boaventura de Sousa Santos asserts that these ideas “counter the marginalizing or erasing of non-Western knowledge systems (categorized as irrational nature), using terms for this phenomenon such as ‘epistemic racism,’ ‘cognitive imperialism,’ and ‘epistemicide.’ All these terms refer not only to a loss or murder of knowledge but also to the destruction of their associated social practices or worlds, making epistemicide ‘one of the conditions for genocide’ (Santos, 2014, p. 92).” In this sense, the arts can increase one's connection to nature, the land and spirit. Art and murals have the capacity to create a totally new narrative of who we are at this moment in time within our given circumstances.
It aids in the seeking of that balance that we can find within us, that connection to the land and the beauty of life as our ancestors once did. It can help to create a new reality of what we want our world to look like going forward.
If you are interested in attending an upcoming community event, please view our calendar to see what we are up to or send us an email. We are always interested in getting more people involved in creating awareness, protecting our art, and empowering our communities through the arts.
Our Work
Stop Whitewashing Our Art!
Stop Whitewashing Our Art!
RJFTA is the originator of the Mural Blessing Ceremony and Mural Vigils.
How can we honor community murals as sacred sites? RJFTA has created and spearheaded a unique series of events to commemorate endangered/erased murals, including organizing candlelight vigils at sunset in memory of a whitewashed mural, blessings of murals and/or ar
RJFTA is the originator of the Mural Blessing Ceremony and Mural Vigils.
How can we honor community murals as sacred sites? RJFTA has created and spearheaded a unique series of events to commemorate endangered/erased murals, including organizing candlelight vigils at sunset in memory of a whitewashed mural, blessings of murals and/or artwork by Indigenous elders, petition signing, lectures for awareness and participatory artivist actions against injustice. These activities have been well documented as evidence for the federal Visual Artists Rights Act, which states that if an artwork “is of ‘recognized stature’ and has some meaning to the community, artists have the right to prevent its destruction” (Zaratan, 2018). Thus, RJFTA community based artivist actions and ceremonies support legal protection of the murals while enacting the Indigenous knowledge that is threatened by gentrification and erasure. These unique research methods will include the testimonios of the artists whose work was erased as well as the testimonios of “el vecindario” (its neighbors). The vecindad or community itself will be generating the testimonios behind every single whitewashed mural as to create unbiased or tainted results, thus creating widely acclaimed awareness and their very own counter-narrative via a grassroots organization like Restorative Justice For The Arts to protect “el arte de nuestra vecindad” (our neighborhood art).
Mural Blessing Ceremony
Participant ARTivist Research (PArtResearch)
Mural Artivism As Decolonial Praxis
A Mural Blessing Ceremony is a healing and reconciliation process which must be Indigenous led, center ancestral and indigenous voices as to prioritize their ways of being and knowing in order to upset the paradigm where all conflict resolution must happen within the settlers’ comfort zone. Artistic heritage can aid the process of unsett
A Mural Blessing Ceremony is a healing and reconciliation process which must be Indigenous led, center ancestral and indigenous voices as to prioritize their ways of being and knowing in order to upset the paradigm where all conflict resolution must happen within the settlers’ comfort zone. Artistic heritage can aid the process of unsettling these comfort zones and bring forth the neutral baseline so that “transitional justice” can be established to achieve friendly relations, eco-psychological justice, and create or remediate a sense of well-being to address and heal collective traumas.
A mural blessing ceremony has intentional power and spiritual value that should NEVER include corrupt and elitist powers who embody and exploit hierarchical values/norms which may or may not continue to omit (ghost) oral histories, social justice, and traditions of Indigenous/First Nations people. RJFTA demands that gentry supportive businesses, constituents, and corporations striving to enhance their image or businesses with murals (often trending in gentrified neighborhoods) that mural blessings are ceremonial events that MUST BE performed by Indigenous and community elders/leaders properly qualified, vetted and chosen by us not them. A mural blessing ceremony is not an “unveiling event,” a show, or a mere activity in a line-up as to benefit your corporation, organization, predation or social media platform. A mural blessing is a powerful, Indigenous centered, spiritual, and sacred intentional ceremony that must be led by us.
Mural Artivism As Decolonial Praxis
Participant ARTivist Research (PArtResearch)
Mural Artivism As Decolonial Praxis
Indigenous murals are decolonial zones for praxis because they honor and center indigenous ways of knowing and being, providing an artivist platform for Indigenous oral histories in oder to decolonize the westernized and imperialized art processes. Sandoval and Latorre call artivism—the “organic relationship between art and activism” tha
Indigenous murals are decolonial zones for praxis because they honor and center indigenous ways of knowing and being, providing an artivist platform for Indigenous oral histories in oder to decolonize the westernized and imperialized art processes. Sandoval and Latorre call artivism—the “organic relationship between art and activism” that grants “access to a multiple of cultures… meshing identities and using these to create new angles of vision to challenge oppressive modes of thinking” (2008, pp. 82-83). Resisting assimilation and Eurocentric praxologies brings forth the recapitulation of indigenous cosmologies. The assertion of Indigenous consciousness destroys legacies of colonialism and the imposition of the individual and collective oppression that continues with coloniality. "Lack of understanding of the Native epistemological root metaphor (ways of being in the world which include the psychological and spiritual worlds) continues to hinder our professions. Historical narcissism (the belief that one’s own system of thinking must be used to validate other cultural belief systems) continues to be an issue in the relationship between Native/Original People and those who hold power in the academic and clinical life-world. I use this strong language because the Native/Original person is expected to fully understand the world of the colonizer simply because the colonizer says so. When it comes to the colonizer making an effort to understand the life-world of the Native/Original person, the colonizer becomes very creative in his/her defenses in order to preserve his/her Cartesian life-world. The intention of this work is to provide a bridge between Western and Traditional Native healing worlds and in this manner bring healing to the historical trauma that all people have suffered at one time in their history" (Duran, 2006, p. 7)
Participant ARTivist Research (PArtResearch)
Participant ARTivist Research (PArtResearch)
Participant ARTivist Research (PArtResearch)
Restorative Justice for the Arts has served as the “artivist arm” of Highland Park, Northeast Los Angeles by utilizing critical PAR based research to advance social justice and protect true democracy. Torre et al. (2012) explains that Critical participant action research (critical PAR) is “an epistemology that engages research design, met
Restorative Justice for the Arts has served as the “artivist arm” of Highland Park, Northeast Los Angeles by utilizing critical PAR based research to advance social justice and protect true democracy. Torre et al. (2012) explains that Critical participant action research (critical PAR) is “an epistemology that engages research design, methods, analyses, and products through a lens of democratic participation.” Critical PAR is “rooted in notions of democracy and social justice which draws on critical theory (feminist, critical race, queer, disability, neo-Marxist, indigenous, and post-structural) cultivated within the long history of psychological history dedicated to social justice.” This participant ARTivist research (PArtResearch) is a sketch of an emergent critical participant action research that combines Indigenous, decolonial, and arts based methodologies greatly associated with the tradition of liberation theology and decolonial pedagogies of creativity. As a scholar-artivist, Brenda has created emergent ecopsychosocial methods to empower and “mobilize everyday people for change” (p.171). As understood through the past works of W.E.B. DuBois and Charles S. Johnson, the trademark of this methodology was “its use of large-scale community participation and democratic education practices throughout the research process and particularly in data collection” (Torre et al., 2012, p.173).
Ancestral Cosmology & Art
Ancestral Cosmology & Art
Participant ARTivist Research (PArtResearch)
The great Xoloitzcuintli - protector and guardian in both realms..
XOLOTL, el gran guardian y protector del diaspora Azteca, el primer general guía de los venidos de Aztlan hacia el lugar elejido, el lugar conocido como el gran Tenochtitlan.
The Xoloitzcuintli is the most ancient dog breed in the Americas. The word Xoloitzcuintli combines “
The great Xoloitzcuintli - protector and guardian in both realms..
XOLOTL, el gran guardian y protector del diaspora Azteca, el primer general guía de los venidos de Aztlan hacia el lugar elejido, el lugar conocido como el gran Tenochtitlan.
The Xoloitzcuintli is the most ancient dog breed in the Americas. The word Xoloitzcuintli combines “Xolotl” with “itzcuintli” which is the Nahuatl word for dog. In ancient Mexico, man's best friend was a loyal companion in life and even after death. The Xoloitzcuintli is the sacred companion and protector of the dead through their journey into the Aztec underworld known as “Mictlan.” The Xoloitzcuintli is considered sacred to us due to its connection to the ancestors and its responsibility for guiding our souls in the afterlife. Xoloitzcuintli represents a safety net in a companion that will be present and protective both in life and in death. Xoloitzcuintli offers strength and guidance in the underworld as do our ancestors. The underworld no longer is a place described as hell or purgatory. It is a necessary journey that comes with benefits of love and companionship and not so much consequence.
In Americanized and/or religious based doctrines, children are indoctrinated to fear the damnation of purgatory or hell. This indoctrination is used by many to control both children and adults into fearful submission and oppression. Xoloitzcuintli provides a different narrative of the underworld which has the power to change this negative association to the spirit world. The very existence and narrative of the sacred Xoloitzcuintli and the Day of the Dead teaches us that there may be challenges in the terrestrial realm but in the end a very positive outcome of a world once perceived as evil and damned.