Our 8th festival celebrated new and innovative work from 350 artists around the world, showing art on billboards, on television, in more than sixty-five venues, and online. The programs presented puzzling questions and dynamic alternatives to corporate-filtered entertainment and alarmist, biased, news reporting. Genres were often blurred, but included documentary, narrative, experimental, and deeply personal pieces. There was also karaoke and a smog dance.
The programming was wide ranging, with titles like “The Secret Films of Girls,” “The Poetics of Bandwidth,” “Mr. Tamale and Ultra Red,” alongside survey collections of Middle Eastern and Latin American work. Artists participating in TV or Not TV included Jeremy Blake, Lynne Sachs, Skip Arnold, local high schoolers, Elkin Calderón, Michelle Handelman, Laurel Almerinda, Maryam Jafri, and Jeremy Drummond.
Freewaves is currently deepening and reorganizing our archive of 35 years of public art in Los Angeles. Check back in 2025 to explore more of our history.
