Crenshaw Dairy Mart

Blueprints, renderings, and technical drawings for the Crenshaw Dairy Mart abolitionist pod (prototype) presented at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, CA., 2021

Blueprints

The exhibited blueprints showcase the build plans prototyping the abolitionist pod, a modular geodesic dome structure containing an autonomous garden. The pockets on its exterior contain hundreds of fruit and vegetable plants sourced from local Black farmers and gardeners around the Greater Los Angeles region. Functioning as a community garden, the construction is designed to support social systems around plant tending in order to imagine the healing capacities of community, gardening with your neighbors, and hands in soil. Crenshaw Dairy Mart’s work as an artist collective is part of a social sculpture that models neighborhood infrastructure for food justice and food abundance — the goal of abolition starts with the propagation of plants, imagining food and farming as a birthright to ancestral lineages. The pods are built to autonomously and self-sustainably water existing plants while utilizing energy collected from solar panels. The botanical space is a hub for gatherings that foster connection with food systems. A knowledge-sharing resource, the blueprints allow others to learn from, imagine, and organize for collective healing.

Crenshaw Dairy Mart abolitionist pod Manifesto, 2021–2022

Single-channel video, 2:30 min.

Credit: Footage includes the Crenshaw Dairy Mart abolitionist pod (prototype) presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, CA in 2021, and the Crenshaw Dairy Mart abolitionist pod currently in operation at the Hilda L. Solis Care First Village in Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA in2022.

Heal With Us (documentation of a Performance), 2021

Single-channel video, 13:57 min.

Credit: A performance piece presented at the Crenshaw Dairy Mart abolitionist pod (prototype) at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, CA.

Crenshaw Dairy Mart abolitionist pod Manifesto and Heal With Us were filmed at the site of the ‘abolitionist pod’ — a modular geodesic dome structure containing an autonomous garden created by the artist collective Crenshaw Dairy Mart. The pod’s exterior is lined with containers for hundreds of fruit and vegetable plants sourced from Black farmers and gardeners around the Greater LA region. Abolitionist pod Manifesto is a declaration of the stated goals, values, and methodology of Crenshaw Dairy Mart. The guiding principle for the collective is building community structures with the goal of abolition and healing ecological futures.

The Manifesto is followed by Heal With Us, a performance conceived by Patrisse Cullors and performed by Debõrah Hughes. Through interpretive movement, the performance ties together the values of healing, mental health, and the physical structure of the ‘abolitionist pod.’ The adjacent gallery of this exhibition displays the blueprints that illustrate the build plans and prototype for the ‘abolitionist pod’ which was first unveiled at MOCA Geffen Contemporary in May 2021. The pod is a social sculpture project for similar structures that the Crenshaw Dairy Mart will implement across Los Angeles County built around the methodology of abolitionist praxis, gardening and food justice, art and healing justice.

The Crenshaw Dairy Mart (CDM) is home to an artist collective and art gallery navigating a myriad of strategies towards addressing PIC abolition and the trauma-induced conditions of poverty and economic injustice, investigating ancestries through the lens of Inglewood and its community. Based in a former dairy mart, CDM emerges from an investment in abolition, modes of accessibility in art practice, and weaving community solidarity through new memories.