If you’ve gone for a stroll around Echo Park Lake in the last couple of days, you may have noticed an interesting new structure. Erected by artist Teresa Margolles as part of the city-wide Current: LA Water public art biennial, the visually simple work carries a powerful story.
The LA Times talked with the artist about her poignant piece, entitled La Sombra (The Shade). It serves as a powerful monument to everyday Angelenos who have been victims of violent crime.
It took Margolles and her team a year to create the piece using a process which imbued it with personal tributes to the victims. Taking the biennial’s overall theme of water, she used pure water to stage ritual cleansings of the exact sites of 100 crimes around Los Angeles, then recaptured and bottled the water. The water bottles were logged with the name and age of the victim along with the date and location of the crime. Once they were all collected, the water was poured together to mix the concrete from which the monument was poured.
While working on the project, the artist filmed the cleansings and created video pieces which she is screening in long-standing small businesses around the Echo Park neighborhood, including Elya Hair Salon, El Clasico Tattoo and Los Lavaderos Laundromat, spreading the message of the work into the community.
As the title may imply, the scale of the piece—it stands more than 20 feet tall—creates a spot of shade in a sunny area of the park. It has become a place where park-goers congregate to cool off and children play. This was all part of Margolles’ design.
“I wanted to put the city in the piece,” she says.
La Sombra (The Shade) by Teresa Margolles will be on display until Aug 14 at Echo Park Lake, 1698 Park Ave.