Animating Murals with San Pedro Stories

Access to tech and creative industry employment

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

The Arts District identified a need to uplift and memorialize the authentic and personal stories of San Pedro residents, workers, with elements of local history. Through the growing body of murals on San Pedro buildings, we are creating community landmarks and tourist attractions, adding to the histories being conveyed through these public artworks. In 2019, we launched the first Adventures in Public Art Program (APAP), a community engagement program, designed to give the participants a common foundation in the elements of art and the creation of public art works reflecting complex ideas and expressive content.
This is a scaleable, sustainable continuation of APAP, and we want to expand this to other LAUSD high schools equipped with CTE media lab programs.
This cutting edge learning opportunity develops creative industry expertise, students can include on their resumes to give prospective employers an idea of their technical skills and creates immediate student economic opportunities.

We want to memorialize the authentic, personal stories of San Pedro residents, cultures, and local history. Murals on San Pedro buildings, DOT boxes and storm drains have provided memorable, inspiring community landmarks and tourist attractions, and now we have an opportunity to convey more content through these art works. Leveraging the technology of augmented reality, the Arts District will work with high school students learning 21st century STEAM skills to add immersive and interactive features to new or existing murals, highlighting inspirational San Pedro stories.
We will hire a Teaching Artist and a Curriculum Developer to work with the Port of Los Angeles High School Career Technical Education students to deliver classroom instruction. Students will be introduced to the AR design process, conduct research and develop story narratives from the community, as well as identify elements from the mural to animate. Lead Artist, Raul Moreno, associated with Otis and the Snap Lens Lab, will oversee the process and assist in completing 5-8 activations, provide expertise to integrate geocodes and create Snap AR lenses. Through this process high school students will develop a deep understanding of how AR activations (Snap lenses) work, develop key marketing skills, experience working with a real-world ‘client,’ create business communications, AR scripts, and secure copyright releases. These are in-demand skills and can give the students side-job opportunities.

Our overarching goals are to uplift all voices within our community through public art works. We chose to work with POLA HS STEAM students to address diversity, equity and inclusion, because this community of students represents an under-resourced population. Enrollment is 95% people of color with the majority being Hispanic/Latino students. 67% of students are eligible for free/reduced meals. These students will engage with the community, staff and families affiliated with our project partner San Pedro City Ballet, whose founder, Cindy Bradley discovered and provided early ballet training for dancer Misty Copeland, who is now a Principal with the American Ballet Theater.
Since 2014, the Arts District’s focus has evolved to include public art, community education and advocacy for all types of arts endeavors. Our key programs also include support of the 27 year old FirstThursday ArtWalk, Guided Tours, Culture TALKS! (an Arts Appreciation Series), and Adventures in Public Art murals.

The Arts District will create surveys for quantitative and qualitative data to gauge impact of the project, assess interest levels, skills learned by the students, and gather feedback for improvements to be implemented in future projects. One of the inherent benefits of this technology is capturing AR visitor statistics and potential demographic data.
Efforts to advance student STEAM equity experiences will be evaluated within the broader scope of the communities where we engage. As we add augmented reality activations and share them on our public art murals, we will make increased connections with more partners and community groups. This will expand the breadth of who is involved and aware of our programs. Creating a comprehensive curriculum will help us perpetuate and expand this project to include other high school students in the area.
This project represents an evolution of our AR high school instruction and the first time we will partner with the San Pedro City Ballet.

The Los Angeles Maritime Institute will provide technical consultation, based on their experiences integrating AR on the La Pincoya mural painted on their building, in December 2023. (La Pincoya is the mural image used for this grant proposal.)
POLA HS will provide access to their media arts students and work with the curriculum consultant to create scalable lesson plans. Students will create AR content.
San Pedro City ballet will offer access to their ballet students' stories, as well as staff recollections about the importance of ballet training.
The Arts District will act as the connector and provide project management, publicity, community outreach, evaluate relevancy of AR activations and work with the curriculum consultant to propose this program to other high school media labs.