ARTS : Exhibit Puts a Face on the Projects

“What makes it really crazy,” said Joe Diaz, “is that there are eight gangs in a 2 1/2-block area.”

Diaz is talking about the Pico-Aliso Housing Projects in Boyle Heights, a couple miles east of Downtown, where he has lived all of his 21 years. Although he admits that the area has its problems--gang shootings are not unusual--he still believes the neighborhood is unfairly portrayed by the media as just another crime-ridden barrio.

“People here are together, not separate,” he said. “Everybody here shares everything. But just the word projects is enough to scare some people away.”

So Diaz and five other Latino youths set out last year to engage in some image-enhancing. The result is “We Live Here! (Nosotros Vivimos Aqui!),” a mixed-media exhibit that’s traveled around town and will be on display starting Tuesday at the Midnight Special Bookstore and Cultural Center in Santa Monica.

With funding from several community groups and the backing of Dolores Mission Church, the exhibit of photographs, videos and text of interviews with neighborhood residents depicts everyday life in the projects--the joy, the heartache, the tragedy and the tedium.

Documentary filmmaker Pamela Cohen and several community activists conceived of the idea as a way to provide an insider’s view of life in the community. The project, which took eight months to complete, was organized by the church’s Proyecto Pastoral group and funded by the Liberty Hill Foundation and the Los Angeles Arts Recovery Fund. Several businesses also donated services such as film processing.

Although the artists are deeply affected by gang life, they are not gang members themselves. Cohen said the artists were chosen on the basis of their commitment to the community, rather than any special experience or skill. The youths did receive some camera and interview training but chose what to shoot and who to interview on their own.

The centerpiece of the project is the 50 or so wide-ranging, black-and-white photographs that the youths, who refer to themselves as “community artists,” took of friends and neighbors.

“We’re just trying to show reality,” said 19-year-old Erica Parra, one of the artists (the other participants are Grace Campos, Becky Garcia, Larry Nguyen and Johnny Saldana). “We’re not trying to say all things are good. We know there are some bad things.”

One of Diaz’s pictures, for instance, shows three gang members mourning over the open casket of a comrade slain in a drive-by shooting last year. Parra said the death led to a truce among Pico-Aliso gangs that was only recently broken.

Some of the other photos are artful depictions of everyday events: children racing excitedly to an ice cream truck, women hanging their laundry to dry, a father feeding his infant daughter. Diaz hit upon the idea of snapping his dog in a junked car; he sold the picture to a councilman from a neighboring city for $50.

“There’s lots of pictures of kids holding babies, laughing, smiling, playing Little League,” said Father Greg Boyle, former pastor of Dolores Mission and now director of Jobs for a Future, a local community group. “The prevailing culture says that (gang) kids are less than human and we should lock them up and throw away the key. But these (artists) know why the gang kids ended up the way they did.”

Although a professional news photographer offered a few hints along the way, the artists faced more than a few technical problems. Diaz and Parra said they often needed to shoot dozens of frames to find the right shot and took their first photos at the wrong exposure.

There were other obstacles too.

The group wanted to make a “memory wall” containing the nicknames of 27 gang members killed in the neighborhood in the past six years. They asked a graffiti artist to spray-paint the names on a large wooden board, using the spiky lettering found on area walls and storefronts. The artist at first balked at painting the names of dead rivals but eventually was talked into it.

“Now we’ll have to add another name,” Diaz said as he glanced at the memory wall, referring to the most recent shooting.

The show has already changed the young artists’ lives. Diaz says he would like to publish a book of photos with his commentary. Parra credits the project with keeping her out of gangs during a vulnerable time in her life.

Yet both say they the most important goal of the project is to give others a realistic picture of life in Pico-Aliso.

“We see this every day,” Diaz said. “When people go home from watching our video and looking at our pictures, we go back to living it.”

“We Live Here!” will be at the Midnight Special Bookstore and Cultural Center, 1318 3rd St., Santa Monica, through March. Information: (213) 461-7305.