The history of Juneteenth has deep roots in Texas; the now-federal holiday commemorates the June 19, 1865 date when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of the passage of the Emancipation Proclamation. That said, June 19 has long served as a day of celebration and commemoration for Black communities all over the U.S., with every state interpreting its approach to Juneteenth a little differently. In California, a Juneteenth celebration at artist Lauren Halsey’s newly opened sister dreamer sculpture park in Los Angeles’s South L.A. neighborhood was a beautiful blend of art and affinity.
Just outside the bounds of Halsey’s 2,100-square-foot outdoor sculpture park on South Western Avenue, a full-on block party lasted for most of Friday afternoon, with neighbors and far-traveling fans of Halsey’s work alike dancing to funk blaring from speakers, shooting baskets, taking in a performance from the Sisters of Watts cheerleading squad, and sampling fare from trucks dispensing everything from BBQ to Afro-Caribbean cuisine to Southern-style fried fish and soul food from Hot Grease, a Black, queer-owned and women-led pop-up based in Orange County.
Within the sister dreamer sculpture park, a 3 p.m. attempt to break the Guinness World Record for longest Soul Train line brought hundreds of Angelenos together to dance, with a sense of effervescence befitting the date’s historic nature suffusing the proceedings. The event was open to all, but its location at one of South L.A.’s largest-scale public sculpture projects drew a particularly artistically inclined crowd, with 29-year-old puppeteer, sculptor, and embroidery artist Kahbia Sada telling Vogue: “It’s nice to be able to come see this installation during Juneteenth, because everyone’s here.”
Energy abounded around the historic nature of the Soul Train line’s potential record-breaking, with 22-year-old pro skater Laron Gigger (who skated to and at the event with a group of friends) telling Vogue: “We’ll skate all over—we skate in Venice, it’s our joy, our passion, this is what we do for fun and for therapy, so to be able to make history and do something that’s big for Black people means the world.”
Watching the crowd assembled on Juneteenth interact with Halsey’s stunning Afrofuturist sculptures and installations (which included life-size carved sphinxes and silhouettes of local mentors and heroes tied to the South L.A. community in which the artist grew up) felt like a perfectly organic example of Angelenos interacting with art where it truly belongs: all around them, rather than tucked away behind the stuffy walls of pay-to-enter museums.
Below, take a visual tour through photographer Nori Rasmussen-Martinez’s view of Friday’s Juneteenth event at the sister dreamer sculpture park.
Photographed by Nori Rasmussen-Martinez
