Gloria Molina Grand Park’s LA Still Works celebrates the beauty, resilience, and creativity of everyday Angelenos.
Through a collaboration with Ozzie Juarez of Tlaloc Studios, the park becomes a living gallery, a place to spark connection, nurture well-being, and honor LA’s diverse cultural tapestry.
As you walk through the park, the four lightboxes invite you to pause, reflect, and discover the extraordinary in the everyday.
The theme Everyday Alchemy in the Still Moments invites us to celebrate the beauty, resilience, and creativity found in the daily lives of Angelenos. It encourages viewers to slow down and find the extraordinary within the ordinary, highlighting moments of presence, transformation, and quiet reflection.
Photography, as a medium, is uniquely suited to this theme. It captures fleeting instants and imbues them with meaning offering a way to freeze time and invite contemplation. For this reason, I will focus solely on photography in this curation, which will reinforce visual cohesion while allowing for a rich diversity of stories and aesthetics.
I have chosen four Los Angeles-based photographers whose work beautifully reflects this theme and speaks to the broader spirit of community and lived experience in LA.
– Ozzie Juarez, Tlaloc Studios
DEAD END KIDS, 1999
On Princeton Street in East LA, a dead end with a staircase became a hangout for local kids. L.A. native Gregory Bojorquez has built a career in photography, with work exhibited both locally and abroad.
"Growing up in Los Angeles, Gloria Molina's name became familiar to me by my parents speaking of her involvement in the Chicano Movement of their time. For a large portion of my life, I saw her image as a rare Chicana with the power and heard her name mentioned in the countless news stories involving local politics. Having my work displayed in the park she helped redevelop is something I hold with deep gratitude. "
As a native to Los Angeles, Gregory Bojorquez began photographing his friends in the neighborhood settings of East Los Angeles. What followed was a career and respective art form that was pursued through the lens of photography. His vignettes of Los Angeles settings have been exhibited locally and internationally.
Girls at the Ice Cream Truck
Photographed in 2016 at Elysian Park, at the L.A. Times Car Club Annual Cinco De Mayo Picnic. Shot with a Minolta X-700 camera on black & white 35mm film.
"The park is an important part of L.A. culture. It’s where we meet and hang out, making memories with family, friends, and loved ones. Everyday moments like these keep me inspired as an artist. On this day, I was at the park photographing a car show, when I came across these two girls ordering at the ice cream truck."
Valerie J. Bower (b. 1986) is a documentary photographer and zine-maker born and raised in the Harbor Area, working primarily in Los Angeles. Through her black & white photography, she explores a range of topics including lowriding, west coast culture, underground music & art scenes, concert touring, and travel. She seeks to show the qualities of everyday life that make people unique but also bond us together.
Escaramuzas. Pico Rivera, CA
This photograph was taken during El Clásico de las Américas, a charrería competition at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena. For this project, my aim was to highlight charrería culture in a way I hadn’t seen represented before and to capture the beauty of the sport. The image shows the escaramuzas as they wait for their turn to perform.
Carlos Jaramillo (b. 1988, McAllen, Texas) is a Mexican-Colombian American photographer based in Los Angeles whose practice explores identity, heritage, and the intersection of tradition with contemporary life. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts (BFA, Photography), Jaramillo often highlights underrepresented communities and the ways cultural identity is expressed through ritual, fashion, and environment. Through his practice, Jaramillo seeks to create images that resonate across borders—works that amplify voices, preserve stories, and challenge conventional narratives about Latin American identity in the United States.
Hoodlove
This photo of Ania Nelson and Valour was originally created and concepted in Leimert Park/Crenshaw neighborhoods of Los Angeles for a brand called “Hoodlove,” a group of locals wanting to emphasize and showcase the unity of their strong community.
"The relationship between these two in this piece emphasizes the unity of community, something that I believe Grand Park can relate to as well - in both small and big ways, always being a place to bring people together."
Nori is an Asian American photographer based within the LA community, specializing in empowering the underrepresented, while simultaneously integrating and incorporating a more diverse and transformative workforce throughout the industry. Being passionate about human connection with an honest interest in one’s stories, she is truly open to new ideas and collaborating with others, with an emphasis on marginalized groups, in a style that is desired by them.
Foundationally, she pursues photography in order to capture overlooked moments between people, using more intuitive approaches and interactions, leading to lasting and wholesome experiences.
Tlaloc studios is an artist-run studio and gallery founded in 2020 by Los Angeles–based artist Ozzie Juarez . Located in South Central Los Angeles, the space was created as a response to the city’s rapid gentrification and the erasure of cultural memory, with a mission to provide a sustainable and inclusive platform for working-class, BIPOC, and local artists.
Named after the Aztec rain god Tlaloc , symbolizing fertility, growth, and community nourishment, the studio embodies a commitment to nurturing creativity while staying deeply rooted in neighborhood identity. Tlaloc Studios houses over a dozen multidisciplinary artists working across painting, sculpture, ceramics, screen-printing, photography, and performance.
Beyond being a physical space, Tlaloc Studios functions as a cultural ecosystem, hosting exhibitions, workshops, and collaborative projects that amplify local voices and preserve stories of resilience, spirituality, and transformation. With accessibility and representation at its core, Tlaloc Studios continues to shape South LA’s cultural landscape by centering community, memory, and collective empowerment.
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