What the Land Holds

Join artists Ako Castuera and Mercedes Dorame for a meditation with clay. Taking place alongside conversation, the workshop will begin by drawing connections between Ryukyuan and Tongva relationships with soil, spirit, and sovereignty.

Together you are invited to use your hands and senses to connect with clay gathered in the local foothills, waking it up with water from the springs and using foundational techniques to form bowls and other shapes. We will connect to the history and energy that the land as clay holds, the energy held within the material through making, and its existence as a living being.

This activity is an invitation to introduce (or re-introduce) ourselves to clay, to tune into clay as a body full of life and potential connective relationships. We will not be firing the clay, and all attending will have the option to have their pieces returned to the land, while connecting to the practice of reciprocity through a spirit of giving and receiving.

Like the clay itself, this workshop has many faces. Come as you are and the clay will meet you there.

Ako Castuera’s storytelling and material practice is based in Los Angeles, where she was born and raised, and her family roots grow from the Ryukyu Islands and Mexico. She creates sculptures and textiles from clay, soil, wool, and scrap, and cultivates intimate, relational exchange with the living bodies of land, water, air, neighbors, and neighborhoods in which she makes her home. Her work is an offering to sites of intersection and transformation, taking the form of psychopomps, objects of protection and play, tools for navigating complex and unfolding experiences.

Ako’s work has been exhibited at the Oakland Museum of California Art, the Japanese American National Museum, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and the Vincent Price Art Museum. She is also known for her work as a story artist on ‘Adventure Time’ and the Emmy award winning director of ‘City of Ghosts’.

Mercedes Dorame is a multi-disciplinary artist who calls on her Tongva ancestry to engage the problematics of (in)visibility and ideas of cultural construction and ancestral connection to land and sky. Born in Los Angeles, California, she received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her undergraduate degree from UCLA. She is currently regular faculty at CalArts in the Photo Media Program.

Dorame’s work is in the permanent collections of The Getty, the Hammer Museum, the Huntington, LACMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Triton Museum, among others. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships such as the Creative Capital Award, the California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists, the Eijteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, the Wanlass Artist in Residence Fellowship. She has shown her work internationally.

This program is part of Endless Wellspring, a series of free public programs co-presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) and the Gabrielino-Tongva Springs Foundation at Kuruvungna Village Springs.

Meaning “a place where we are in the sun,” Kuruvungna is the site of a natural spring and an ancestral Tongva village in Tovaangar, present-day Los Angeles. Stewarded by the Gabrielino-Tongva Springs Foundation, the two-acres of land features ponds, gardens, and a cultural center dedicated to the life and history of the Tongva people.

In recent years, the Springs has undergone immense ecological restoration through a collective community effort to care for and maintain the sacred site. Reflecting that work, Endless Wellspring is centered around the theme of regeneration, bringing together Native artists and educators to engage with the natural elements and ongoing life and history of Kuruvungna. From hands-on art making workshops to performances, and garden tours, we look forward to seeing you at the Springs this summer.

Endless Wellspring is organized by Mercedes Dorame, artist and Gabrielino-Tongva Springs Foundation board member, and Christopher Mangum-James, LAND deputy director, with support from artist and scholar Lili Flores Aguilar.

This series is made possible in part by the LA County Department of Arts and Culture as part of Creative Recovery LA, an initiative funded by the American Rescue Plan. Generous support provided by Art of Recovery, an initiative of the City of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, and the West Los Angeles Sawtelle Neighborhood Council through a Neighborhood Purpose Grant. Special thanks to Walton Chiu.

Graphic by Jimena Gamio.