Artists of Skid Row, Unite!

This year marks four decades of cultural labor by the Los Angeles Poverty Department founded by the performance artist John Malpede – a collective rooted in the class struggles of Skid Row. Since its founding, LAPD has reclaimed performance as a tool of consciousness raising, organizing, and resistance against the violence of displacement and the machinery of urban profit. In this conversation John Malpede and his partner in crime, Henriëtte Brouwers, reflect on the political stakes of their practice, the contradictions of institutional engagement, insisting on art as a living weapon in the hands of the working class.

What does it mean to look back over the past 40 years and the strange duality between Reagan and Trump, particularly in light of the neoliberal policies that took hold then, and continue now, with ICE and mass incarceration? (Ironically, Reagan did a mass amnesty of illegal immigrants, commented our colleague, Will Kherbek) Can we talk about the conditions that shaped the beginnings of the LAPD, and what legacy those early policies have left behind?

John Malpede: Reagan had everything to do with it. I started noticing people living on the street in ’83, when I was still in New York. I was working on a Creative Time commission for a landfill site in the Hudson River – what became Battery Park City. They were removing dirty river water, filling it with sand, and turning it into the world’s most expensive real estate. But just blocks away, people were sleeping on the street. In collaboration with artist Erica Rothenberg and architect Lori Hawkinson, we built the Big Megaphone and pointed it at the World Trade Center which was across the street. Anyone could climb up and speak directly to power. Factored into the design was my intention to use the megaphone in my performance about homelessness and the global banking crisis. Then I came to L.A. and discovered it was the “homeless capital” of America. I went to public hearings, started volunteering with unhoused folks and Catholic Worker organizers and wrote, “Olympic Update: Homelessness in Los Angeles”.  The Catholic Worker legal clinic became Inner-City Law Center, and I was hired as a street outreach worker. I started doing performance workshops at night for anyone in Skid Row. The workshops became LAPD. LAPD was rooted in trust and goodwill within the community. What was important to me was creating something firsthand and unmediated. I wanted a space where people didn’t have to “act right.” People behaved how they behaved. Some folks on Skid Row voted for Reagan (and even now for Trump). The LAPD ensemble held divergent political beliefs. We made room for all of it.  Because every person matters no matter what. That gave it dimensionality.

Henriëtte, you joined later, but you’ve helped shape LAPD’s use of testimony and collective resistance – through performance, exhibitions, public presence. That use of testimony as script isn’t obvious or easy. How did you arrive at that form?

Henriëtte Brouwers: My performance work was movement-based with a social conscience. I performed and taught in the Netherlands, France, and the U.S. until I met John in 1996. That year, I was performing at 7 Stages in Atlanta and traveling through Africa. My work was changing. I became interested in working directly with communities. John introduced me to the LA Poverty Department and Skid Row. My first project with LAPD was Agents & Assets. This performance is about the war on drugs and uses the text of a congressional hearing. It moved away from personal testimonies to witnessing the government. Testimonies are just one part of what LAPD has done.

The testimonies you voice aren’t just biographical, but objective accounts of how people describe their lives and the structures they’re up against.

JM: I brought with me what I knew: avant-garde performance, improvisation, monologue. The first LAPD show was all monologues, which was practical: people weren’t necessarily great at interacting onstage. And if someone disappeared, we could just drop their piece. When someone did disappear another cast member knew it and did [the piece] it. Our second show was a group improvisation, no script, just scene lists. Every night was different. Everyone sat in the audience and jumped into scenes. It mirrored the chaos of Skid Row. We created fictional stories shaped by real events. At the time there had been 3 point-blank shootings of sleeping homeless people. Our show, No Stone for Studs Schwartz, opened with someone lying dead, then [we] rewound to show how they got there. I wanted the story to refer to the random shootings. Others pushed for a gangster narrative. We left it unresolved. One night it ended one way, the next, another, depending on the performers’ moment-to-moment decisions.  That gave it an emotional charge. People wrote about it like it was someone’s personal story, but that idea is limiting. Everyone has a million stories. Some are true. Some aren’t. We were more interested in engaging the whole person.

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You keep mentioning “energy.” What do you mean? Is it about resilience? Survival? Or structural violence?

JM: I mean the energy of the street. How people move through it, day by day. The dynamic shapes how people talk, act, and create. There’s no irony on Skid Row.

From State of Incarceration to Walk the Talk, LAPD has consistently documented both histories and resistance. Do you see your work as a form of preservation – especially in a city that tries to make the poor invisible?

JM: Absolutely. Walk the Talk, ‘The Festival for All Skid Row Artists,’ these projects say: “This is a community. You can’t bulldoze it.” The dominant narrative says Skid Row is a place of transients, but we push against that. Even before I arrived, Catholic Worker and others fought to preserve the housing stock, blocking a development plan that would’ve razed everything. Our exhibitions and performances keep this history alive, and we use it to prevent displacement.

Would you say that creating a neighborhood also helps balance the exposure of structural issues with a space for creativity?

HB: There are many artists in Skid Row, but few gathering spaces. People live under constant pressure from police and surveillance. But it is a community; people know each other. When LAPD started, other community resources like the Downtown Women’s Center and LAMP were starting up. Even early protests had a creative core. Clyde Casey occupied an abandoned gas station, set up a piano, and held space there for a year. People made their own cultural centers before we had this one.  

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 HB: Definitely. People here have always made art. Our work is about bringing people together. We make performances starting from real issues, improvising, working with the energy that’s present. [It’s] very specific. It’s not commercial. It’s not like any other theater I’ve seen in the U.S..   

JM:  And it’s not franchise-able. We did a residency project, “LAPD Inspects America” – we’d travel to other cities, build casts with LAPD’ers and local unhoused people, and make performances together. People hoped our model would spread, but it’s not a model. It’s a relationship. A commitment.

Who are you doing this for today?

JM: We’re doing it in Skid Row, where it makes a difference – both in the community and its representation. But that question also applies to our current project: advocating for accessible healthcare for houseless people across the 4,084 square miles of LA County. It’s a massive lift.  So, yes, it’s worth asking: why do this? I believe in the power of the weird. Those curveballs that art throws. Sometimes they really matter. They can create ruptures.

HB: For me, the most important thing is bringing people together. That’s what LAPD does, connecting people from Skid Row with policymakers and neighbors who might not know what’s happening there. We try to widen the circle. When we perform at Redcat Theater, the circle gets even wider. And here at the museum, folks from the community can meet others working in similar contexts. That’s why we take our work to other cities, other countries, because these issues aren’t unique to us here. They are everywhere. 

The art world often fetishizes these concerns. But your work resists that, it materially supports people. How do you navigate working with cultural institutions?  

JM: We’ve never had any problems there. We only do what we want, and the institutions who have wanted to work with us have valued that.

When you founded LAPD in 1985, the dominant narratives around homelessness were about decay and neglect. What kind of political agency has emerged through LAPD’s work in Skid Row?

JM: That Skid Row exists and hasn’t been bulldozed or gentrified out of existence is itself a victory – thanks not only to us, but many community groups, going back to the 70s.  Sustaining the neighborhood has involved sustained resistance to criminalization of homelessness and threats of displacement, and also demanding that the powers that be listen to the community. And, sometimes, they have. Our show I Fly at Redcat, focused on community-generated public safety. We used our own ‘Festival’ for All Skid Row Artists as an example;  we never have police or security guards. The community takes responsibility.

HB: I Fly! also highlighted the creation of The Refresh Spot, a 24-hour hygiene center. It exists because Alisa Orduña – working with [former] Mayor [Eric] Garcetti – truly listened to the community. Over two years, they developed a space where people could shower, do laundry, [and] use toilets staffed by community members. That was a massive win. That helped lay the foundation for what LA County’s Department of Health Services is now doing through the Skid Row Action Plan: creating walk-in, low-barrier health centers with beds and services. These victories came through persistence. We stopped a restaurant with a full liquor license from opening in a supportive housing facility. There were losses too. Like when we tried to form our own neighborhood council. But overall, the neighborhood is being heard more. People are being hired from the community. Residents are getting paid to serve on advisory councils to oversee the plan’s implementation. That’s huge. 

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What would you want the legacy of LAPD to be? And how can people outside Skid Row contribute to that vision without co-opting it?

HB: The “non-co-opting” part is embedded in how we make our projects. For example, we avoid the standard post-performance Q&A where cast members are put on display. We say: the cast is part of the audience. They can join the conversation if they want, but the discussion is about the issues raised. We’re also careful with our archive. Some materials are private, only accessible to certain people. We never commercialize our work. 

Here's a related question about the 2028 Olympics. Looking at the commercialization of entire cities – and thinking back to 1985, when LAPD was born from the legacy of the ‘84 Games – what would it look like if the Olympics were forced to benefit Skid Row residents?

JM: They’d build housing, apartment buildings throughout the city – including Skid Row – that, after the Games, would be converted – 100% – into extremely low-income and supportive housing.

Have you considered holding them accountable through a project?

HB: There’s already a lot of momentum and awareness building. There’s a group called No Olympics. They’re collecting oral histories from the last time and raising awareness. We’ve participated in some of their efforts. 

Maybe it’s time for a re-enactment of Olympic Update?

JM: I always feel like I should keep doing it. Unfortunately, it’s become kind of timeless. 

One last question. If you could send a message back to the version of yourselves who started this journey what would you say?

JM: I’d say: go find a home for yourself. I think that’s what I did here, just like everyone else in Skid Row. We are home now. 

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Visit the archive for all the works mentioned (and everything else) at: https://www.lapovertydept.org/

This interview was conducted by María Inés Plaza Lazo. Kseniia Sivova helped her edit the transcript. William Habib Kherbek proofread the final draft.

• Image credits

  
  Cover: Artists from Skid Row Festival (2024). Courtesy of the LAPD

  Fig. 1 LA Poverty Department, Walk the talk (2024). Courtesy of the LAPD

  Fig. 2/3: Skid Row Festival (2024). Courtesy of the LAPD