Posts Tagged ‘This is What We Imagine’

It’s easy to get jealous in Los Angeles.  Most everyone came here from somewhere, even if it was here, to try and create art of some sort, to go behind the curtain of media-making in an attempt to toss in a pinch of their own individual ingredients.  The result is an endless stream of Facebook invitations, familiar postcards on coffee shop pin-boards, and a daunting sense that others’ ingredients—some friends, some enemies, some people who just got to town—are taking over the stew.

But if there’s anything I learned in college—a smaller, but similar stew—it’s that the work of my peers, in analysis or collaboration, is often the best teacher out there.  And it’s precisely because you are jealous, because you can view their creative process as a mirror of your own.  You can say, “Huh, this person is no genius, they’re practically an idiot, but they made this choice.  I never thought about doing that.  Maybe I too can make that choice, only better.”  It’s creative capitalism, but the only way it works is when you’re actively supporting one another.

This seems to be motto of the Los Angeles-based art collective, This Is What We Imagine (TIWWI, or Teewee), a group of young video, film, photography, and design makers—many of whom I went to school with—that are exhibiting their latest projects tonight, Saturday night, at the Echo Park Rec Center.  Beginning at 9:00 PM, the program, called “Show and Tell,” boasts the premiere of two recent collaborative efforts: “Weekend of Wonderment 6” and “Remember When.”  If you haven’t heard of the first five installments of the “Weekend of Wonderment” campaign, it’s comprised of about four or five projects, all made within the time-span of two days and with the help of anybody and everybody available.  “Remember When,” also the product of many (as opposed to few), is a new comic web-series about a group of friends who try to recreate the lost memories of their amnesia-begotten buddy.

TIWWI’s “Show and Tell” begins tonight, Saturday, 9:00 PM, at the Echo Park Rec Center, located at 1161 Logan Street in Echo Park. For more information, please visit www.tiwwi.com.

Everyone loves a good story – kids love bedtime stories, campers love scary stories, teenage girls love vampire stories – we’ve all got our favorites.  The best ones are those you end up, for better or worse, celebrating or retelling for a long time to come.  Stories aren’t always found in the most predictable or common places.  Most often, they’re found where you least expect them. 

This is What We Imagine, an LA based art collective, has created an evening for the storytellers and avid listeners in all of us that benefits 826L.A.  Called Night Lights: A Party!, their event celebrates the art of storytelling and the art of finding stories in the everyday.  It starts tonight at 8pm (The Ugly Truth is good, but it can wait till tomorrow) at the e2 building in Downtown LA and features the musical stylings of Voxhaul Broadcast, The Botticellis, Princeton, a smattering of DJs, and a comedy hour starting at 9:00pm.  What’s more is… it’s all in celebration of the story.  So come with a good one in mind or at least with the mind to come up with a good one tonight!

Night Lights: A Party! is going on tonight at 8pm at the e2 Building in Downtown LA.  Click here for a map of the location and click here for more information about the party.