Seeds and a dish with chicken and berries on a decorative table

David Horvitz performs at Soup & Tart: Los Angeles, June 8, 2023.

Active Cultures is a public arts nonprofit in Los Angeles that explores the intersection of art, food, and ecologies through artist-led projects and programs.

Upcoming Projects

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Enzo Camacho & Ami Lien: Langit Lupa, A Film Screening, Conversation, and Celebration

With Xenia Tupas

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Enzo Camacho & Ami Lien: Langit Lupa, The Symposium

With Josen Masangkay Diaz, Joy Sales, and Lucy MSP Burns.

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Leslie Labowitz Starus: a SPROUTIME kids workshop

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FEATURED PROJECT

The Banana Leaf is a Container Technology

During this year’s fall equinox, artist Paige Emery created a Filipinx Kamayan feast in collaboration with chef Ria Dolly Barbosa, amidst the olive grove of Arlington Garden. As part of the ECOTONES series, the program offered a spread of food and flowers served on banana leaves, where we were seated on the earth and eating by hand—as Emery invited us to gather under the changing season’s sun and experience ecopoetic rituals interspersed throughout the course of the afternoon.

Paige Emery: The Banana Leaf is a Container Technology, 2024, produced by Active Cultures and The Brick at Arlington Garden Pasadena. Photo by Jessica Howes.

For over a decade, artists Enzo Camacho and Ami Li

For over a decade, artists Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien have developed a multidisciplinary practice addressing geopolitical relations by attending to localized forms of dispossession, survival, and resistance, particularly in the context of the Philippines.

Join us on Nov. 9 & 10 for the artists’ residency in Los Angeles, centering on a weekend of public events at 2220 Arts + Archives, including a film screening, symposium, and community celebration, entreating various publics across LA to learn from, share space with, and act in solidarity with the Philippine people’s struggle.

Ami and Enzo have invited activists, artists, culture and knowledge workers, and food folks to join us through the weekend, including Xenia Tupas, Lucy MSP Burns, Josen Masangkay Diaz, Joy Sales, The Bootleg Orchestra, Ria Dolly Barbosa, and more!

🌱 Visit our website for the lineup of events and stay tuned for more in the coming weeks!

All events are free and all are welcome!

@2220arts @t_j_shin @gabrielalosangeles @carolannemcchrystal @josen.diaz @joy_m_sales @bootlegorchestra @riadollybarbosa

Enzo Camacho & Ami Lien: Langit Lupa (Heaven and Earth) is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov. Langit Lupa’s public programming is also made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. @calartscouncil

Enzo Camacho & Ami Lien: Langit Lupa (Heaven and Earth) is organized by Active Cultures with support of artist TJ Shin as Project Manager.

Angel Dimayuga, Active Cultures Secret Supper, 202

Angel Dimayuga, Active Cultures Secret Supper, 2024. With tortang talong, corn maque choux, roasted shallot ajo blanco, biko, and more. Secrets from Angel including a Balvenie ice rock blessing and herbal poppers.

AC hosts the Secret Suppers to share our gratitude for our closest supporters; to uplift the practice of artists in our city; and to feed our year-round public art programming.

The final supper of the year is December 3! And we’d love you to come to the table. Visit our website or reach out to learn more about joining our membership circle.

We are so grateful to our Secret Supper sponsor William Grant & Sons, host and AC Board Member Raina Kumra, Angel, and AC’s beloved members and artists.

@angela.dimayuga @kumratronic @williamgrantusa @thebalvenie @moonbeam_kitchen @lauramfried @semchale @kankankim 📷 @jessicahowes_

Watering is a communal hydration ritual, a gatheri

Watering is a communal hydration ritual, a gathering facilitated by artist Meech Boakye that considers hydration as a medium for collective healing.

For the second in a series co-presented by Active Cultures and The Brick, the gathering centers on a screening of Jumana Manna’s Foragers (2022), a film that explores the restricted practices of foraging wild edible plants in Palestine under Israeli law. This program invites participants to question how ecological conservation can be weaponized as a political tool for displacement.

💧 Link in bio for full details and to RSVP!

@ghostyboi
@thebrick_la
@jumanamanna

Support for this program series is provided by Kim and Keith Allen-Niesen, The Maurice Marciano Family Foundation, and Olivia Marciano.

For the fall equinox, artist Paige Emery created a

For the fall equinox, artist Paige Emery created a Kamayan feast amidst the olive grove of Arlington Garden, inviting us to gather under the changing season’s sun and experience ecopoetic rituals interspersed through the course of the afternoon.

Thank you to Paige, chef Ria Dolly Barbosa, The Brick, and Arlington Garden for their partnership and care in producing the first program in the ECOTONES series. We are so grateful to our community for a moving afternoon around the Kayaman.

Check out Paige’s recent writing for MOLD to learn more about this facet of her practice — link in our bio!

@paigeemery_
@riadollybarbosa
@thebrick_la
@arlingtonpasadena

Photos by @jessicahowes_

We are hiring a part-time Curator—come work with

During this year’s fall equinox, artist Paige Em

During this year’s fall equinox, artist Paige Emery will create a Filipinx Kamayan feast in collaboration with Los Angeles chef Ria Dolly Barbosa, amidst the olive grove of Arlington Garden.

For the first in a series co-presented by Active Cultures and The Brick, the program offers a spread of food and flowers served on banana leaves, where we will be seated on the earth and eating by hand—as Emery invites us to gather under the changing season’s sun and experience ecopoetic rituals interspersed throughout the course of the afternoon.

🌱 Link in bio for full details and to RSVP!

@paigeemery_
@riadollybarbosa
@thebrick_la
@arlingtonpasadena

Support for this program series is provided by Kim and Keith Allen-Niesen, The Maurice Marciano Family Foundation, and Olivia Marciano.

Image: Paige Emery preparing Kamayan at Bulalayaw Village. October 2021. Courtesy of the artist.

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