Star Tours is an exhibition located within 16 foot truck by artist Corrie Siegel. This nomadic initiative intends to draw connections between local communities, Los Angeles history, and cross-cultural narratives of diaspora. Over the month of January 2014 Star Tours functioned as a vehicle for collaboration and exploration at sites throughout Los Angeles.

Tourist van, moving truck, and migratory gallery, Star Tours mapped the Los Angeles landscape with visits to sites throughout LA County. Visitors were invited to view the changing exhibition within the vehicle, contribute stories to form a collaborative map, and participate in distinct programs at each site. Programs included workshops, dining experiences, tours, presentations by artists and academics, oral history recording sessions, and informal games of beach volleyball.

Star Tours is a part of Cadastral Masorah, a multidisciplinary constellation of works created over 3 years. The drawings, papercuts, photographs, videos and performances presented were influenced by the history of map making from antiquity to the present. Siegel references cartography, graffiti, Los Angeles iconography, and traditional art forms that traveled along with the Jewish Diaspora to explore identity and place within the multicultural city of Los Angeles.  Star Tours visitors were asked to work as collaborators to create and interpret abstracted maps in order to visualize paths within history and space.

 

Sites included:

Side Street Projects: 

 January 11, 11:00 -2:00 pm 

730 North Fair Oaks Ave. Pasadena, CA 91103

Visitors invited to learn micrography- an art form developed by 8th century Hebrew scribes that sculpts small text to form an image.

http://sidestreet.org/star-tours/

 

Watts Towers:

 January 18, 11:00-3:00pm

1727 East 107th St. Los Angeles, CA 9002

Tours offered of Watts Towers for $7 on the half hour starting at 10:30 and ending at 3:00.

http://www.wattstowers.us/

 

LACMA: 

January 19, 10:30-3:00pm

5905 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036

Visitors are invited to explore historic maps and draw a map of their own. LACMA is open 10:00-7:00pm.

http://www.lacma.org/

 

Hiatus Series, Raid Projects:

 January 19, 6:30-8:30pm

602 Moulton Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90031

Diaspora Dinner, a narrative that unfolds with each thematic course, Contributing Artists Xia Magnus and Alyssa Polk sculpt a dinner party that tells the story of Lincoln Heights ethnic groups as seen by the concrete lions that resided on the Selig zoo gate from 1915-to 2000. RSVP requested.

http://raidprojects.com/

 

The Workmen’s Circle/ Arbeter Ring:

 January 20, 12:00-3:00pm

1525 S Robertson Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90035

Bagels and Yiddish conversation group at 2:00-3:30

http://www.circlesocal.org/

 

Human Resources: 

January 21, 6:30-9:30pm

410 Cottage Home St. Los Angeles, CA, 90012

Public Memory, Google Maps & Personal Narrative- Presentations by Jordan Bielsky, Brigitte Nicole Grice, Kate Wolf and Yelena Zhelezov. An evening of short talks and performances by artists, writers and scholars who will employ Google maps as a tool to navigate place, history, and our relationship to it. Complementary food that explores Los Angeles and world geography provided by artists Xia Magnus and Alyssa Polk.

http://humanresourcesla.com/calendar-events/

 

Taco Zone

January 24, 8:30-9:30pm

Alvarado and Montana, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Taco Zone Dance Party. Taco Zone is mobile kitchen that functions roughly between 8:00 pm and 3:00 am and locates itself on Alvarado Street at the intersection with Montana Street. A place maker, Taco Zone is not a space, it is a state of mind, an action, an experience. From 8:30-9:30 Star Tours will host a dance party within a 16 foot truck in the supermarket parking lot adjacent to Taco Zone.
Featuring Taco Zone Go-Go Dancers: Parisa Rezvani, Olivia Fales and Danika Kasky
Tacos approx $1.25 each
Comfortable shoes suggested.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/taco-zone-truck-los-angeles

 

Annenberg Community Beach House: 

January 25, 11:00-3:00pm

415 Pacific Coast Highway, Santa Monica, CA 90402

Informal beach volleyball.

http://beachhouse.smgov.net/

 

This project is made possible with support from The Six Points Fellowship. The Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists is a program of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, originally founded in partnership with Avoda Arts, and JDub, with significant funding from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, and the Righteous Persons Foundation.