Building Community Los Angeles

We enjoy “community” and authentic engagement. We want to feel connected to our neighbors, and learn to live together interdependently. We celebrate diversity and stand for justice, healing, and the rights of all humans, plants, animals and the earth. We strive for equity and support the efforts of marginalized communities to gain equal access to resources, amenities and well-being. We seek to leverage our privileges for the benefit of the land's original people and work towards right relationship.

We support permaculture, earth building, co-housing, ecovillage and transition movements: means of restoring health for our environment and humanity. We want to learn from the neighborhoods in Los Angeles that are doing things right – where is community already working and why?

These efforts will not be sustainable until they are accessible to everyone. What kinds of changes can we make to our city's ideas of ownership and enterprise, to make it easier for folks to live here?

Join us for council gatherings: real conversations where every person’s voice is heard. Held in locations throughout our city, the talks give us a chance to experience many versions of community. We’ll uncover common ground and shared concerns and work toward real solutions. Guest speakers will help us explore the issues we’re curious about. We’ll visit functioning communities and take workshops to build our skills. The possibilities for this group are limitless – expect to see spin-off collaborations and new communities forming as like-minded members find each other at our events. We are a community ourselves!

This group was originally a part of the You Are : Here collaborative project between artists Jennifer Kane and Beth Ann Morrison in the Public Practice graduate program at Otis College of Art and Design. Together, Beth Ann and Jenny created a transformable trailer that served as a mobile platform for engagement in the Antelope Valley desert communities of Littlerock and Sun Village. The artists sought to bring people together to share their stories, preserve their history and learn from one another. The trailer’s yellow and white umbrella has become a recognizable symbol for finding our local place in this global community.