BRICK AND MORTAR : STARS AND STRIPES
PART 3: CITY HALL

For X-TRA Online, Pau S. Pescador has produced a four-part video essay in which they examine four Los Angeles government buildings: Union Station, the Department of Water and Power John Ferraro Building, City Hall, and the former Los Angeles Police Department Parker Center Headquarters. Through an idiosyncratic mix of interviews, live action, and hand-drawn animation, Pescador delves into these buildings as sites of public use, examining both their history and their continued operation. These videos are portraits of what each building symbolizes—what they were built to represent, and what they represent today.

Brick and Mortar : Stars and Stripes moves to Los Angeles City Hall, home of elected city officers like the fifteen council-members and the mayor. Pescador focuses on the history of the building itself, a large ziggurat that, when completed in 1928, was the tallest building in town. As Pescador considers the lasting impact of City Hall, they reflect on their own experience working in government, from serving as Student Body President in high school to landing a job as a city employee as an adult—a personal parallel to the city’s own dramatic coming of age.

Pau S. Pescador is an artist, filmmaker, performer and writer. They graduated with an MFA from University of California, Irvine and a BA from the University of Southern California. Select exhibitions and screenings include: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); The Pit, Glendale; 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica; UV Estudios, Buenos Aires; gallery1993, Los Angeles; Coastal/Borders, Getty Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA at Angels Gate Cultural Center; Ashes/Ashes, Park View, The Main Museum, and gallery1993, all Los Angeles. Their first collection of writing, CRUSHES: A NOVELLA, was published by Econo Textual Objects in Spring 2017.