‘OK, I’m in my dream world now.’ Lauren Halsey shares a vision for her neighborhood

(Barrington Darius / For The Times)

It was a vision that was never not living somewhere in Lauren Halsey’s mind, just waiting for the right moment to come to fruition. The Summaeverythang Community Center, a space bringing art, health and wellness, and education to kids in South Central sometime in 2028, is the kind of community work that has always been present in Halsey’s art practice, of course. But this center is also a physical manifestation of a way of being, an ethos integral to Halsey as the person, not just the artist, which is: “You serve.” Halsey received a living roadmap of care from the history of her neighborhood, her family and community that sparked inspiration for the center early on, even if she didn’t know it was happening yet.

As a kid, going to a Black Montessori school outside of her neighborhood, and coming back home to its lushness and vibrancy — what she calls her “dream world” — Halsey saw the beauty and resources within this place that she wanted to magnify for the next generation. Being a student at CalArts, she had the epiphany under her mentor Charles Gaines that she “can’t present work about South Central’s preservation without actually doing something about it,” she says. As her childhood friend Emmanuel Carter remembers: “That was always on her bucket list.” The Summaeverythang Community Center will be, in Halsey’s words, some of everything for the children in her neighborhood.

From Feb. 20-23, Halsey is doing a Summaeverythang Community Center activation at Frieze, which will include a merch booth in collaboration with Bephie’s Beauty Supply and Nike, featuring T-shirts, hoodies and ceramics; an art booth led by painter and sculptor Alake Shilling with Bret Harte Preparatory Middle School and Pasadena Rosebud Academy; and a talk with Summaeverythang Community Center architect Barbara Bestor on Feb. 21 at noon. In celebration, she shared fragments of memories, inspiration and visual ephemera that contributed to her hopes for the space.

On mantras that embody the Summaeverythang Community Center:

I totally believe in consistency, work ethic and just showing up for your funk, and things will happen if you prioritize their development.

On colors that evoke the Community Center:

Because it’s South Central, it’s a Black and brown L.A. palette: neons and pastels — total saturation, vibrance, gradients.

On the Community Center’s mission and structure:

It shifts from being, “You need help with math?” We have tutoring for that. “You need therapy?” We have that. When the air quality gets better, surfing lessons. How to make a storyboard. I want kids to come in and feel like they can reach their most maximalist potential.

(Rendering by Bestor Architecture)

There will be a ton of plexiglass throughout the space in the form of partitions so that you can see another kid recording a beat, and they can stare at you from across the room making ceramics. Being inspired by everyone’s effort and energy.

It’s not the Boys & Girls Club, it’s not a YMCA. It’s petite. Thirty kids, maybe 40, depending on the programming. I want it to be a multipronged program, that’s literally why it’s called Summaeverythang — Some of Everything.

On early inspiration for the Community Center:

I think of being super young and going to a Black Montessori school in Westchester, off of Sepulveda and Manchester, and then living basically off of Western and Manchester. Whenever I crossed over what that boundary was and it was like, “OK, I’m back in the ’hood,” there were just certain signifiers of lush city block aesthetics that I found to be really beautiful. I knew they were gestures done with folks’ hands, whether that was a hand-painted sign, a sign that’s put up as a graphic for advertising that’s very DIY, whether that meant clothing, style, I just knew: “OK, I’m in my dream world now.”

I watched my father be present for kids at St. Andrews Park — our park, the park that he grew up in, which is why he had so much pride for the next generation. He contributed in all the ways, from sports to violence reduction programs to tutoring. He was doing that before I was born. I was like, “What a contribution. What a commitment to showing up for people.”

My grandmother and aunts and what the church symbolized: “You serve.”

My mentor, Charles Gaines, hired me to be his assistant as soon as I got to CalArts, which was such a gift because in that moment I realized, “Oh, you can professionalize your practice and have a beautiful life and do other things for society.” Then I realized that I can’t present work about South Central’s preservation without actually doing something about it, especially if it’s going to exist in contexts I don’t control. There had to be something.

On the ephemera, memories and images that symbolize the Community Center:

Antoinette is my grandmother who passed away in 2012. A huge figure in my life. She has this cartouche that pays homage to her on the side of the KRST Unity Center of Afrakan on Western. I think about her obsessively every day. She brought in missionaries and lived with them, women having hardships for whatever reason, brought them into our home, helped raise their kids who became my play uncles and aunts. She just really cared about the health of Black family life.

(Courtesy of UCLA Newsroom)

To create opportunities for natural expression for Black folks, that’s what I hope the Community Center will do once I have the ability. To bring it back to this moment, that’s where, for almost two years, we did our food program, in the parking lot of the Watts Coffee House, which used to be Watts Happening Coffee House, with Desiree Edwards who’s the owner. It felt really amazing that she allowed us, every single Friday, to use her parking lot space to serve — whatever that meant. At some points, we were giving away a lot of art kits with the Crenshaw Dairy Mart, LACMA. We collaged and put in our own boxes as care packages. This Community Center gives back in the way that I think the Watts Happening Coffee House gave back to people’s expression, giving them a platform to just be.

I got to spend deep time in Octavia Butler’s archive library for at least two months. I mean, every grocery list, every single Christmas, birthday card, whatever her mother gave her, to sketches for stories or essays to her affirmations. I thought, that’s no fear. And that’s where I need to be. I would read her affirmations every single day. It just became my language for myself until I created a new language for myself.

It would be irresponsible for me to exist in the world without spreading resources, information, material, right back to the community I’m a part of. That includes power and access. This [Nipsey Hussle quote] I think about as an agenda, every day.

Children in front of Lauren Halsey’s Installation at the Met, “The Eastside of South Central Los Angeles Hieroglyph Prototype Architecture (I).”

(Courtesy of Brooklin A. Soumahoro)

Prioritize kids that might not be getting the attention they deserve, because of systems, because of all the reasons we can imagine. I could make a difference and raise the next generation and what it would look like — give all of our attention at a very high level, at no cost. I had to find resources outside of my community to arrive. But on the flip side, in my heart, I think the resources were here, my parents just didn’t have time to find them. It makes sense that no matter what happens with my career, I get to participate in what happens with youth culture and education here.