The Care We Create by Audrey Chan unveiled at ACLU SoCal Headquarters

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'The Care We Create' (2020) by Audrey Chan (Art MFA 08). She is the ACLU SoCal's inaugural artist-in-residence. | Photo courtesy of ACLU SoCal.

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'The Care We Create' depicts major civil rights activists and leaders in Southern California.| Photo courtesy of ACLU SoCal.

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'The Care We Create' depicts major civil rights activists and leaders in Southern California.| Photo courtesy of ACLU SoCal.

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'The Care We Create' depicts major civil rights activists and leaders in Southern California.| Photo courtesy of ACLU SoCal.

On Jan. 8, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) unveiled The Care We Create, a massive public mural created by ACLU SoCal’s inaugural artist-in-residence Audrey Chan (Art MFA 07). The 5,500-square foot artwork covers the front of the ACLU SoCal’s headquarters building in downtown Los Angeles, and depicts important civil rights leaders and activists from from Southern California. The mural also gives visual representation to passages from ACLU’s bedrock document — the U.S. Constitution — and other messages. 

“The mural lifts up Southern Californians — past and present — who have fought for a better tomorrow,” Chan said in a release, “by exercising their First Amendment rights, challenging unjust systems of policing and abuses of state power, and demanding respect for the rights of Black and Brown people, immigrants, people unhoused, the LGBTQ community, and youths.”

The Care We Create features portraits of Patrisse Khan-Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Global Network, as well as Dr. Melina Abdullah, Baba Akili, Hector Barajas, Albert Corado, José Bello, Alysha Boone & Anthony Flores-Alvarez, Theo Henderson, Mark-Anthony Johnson, Janaya Future Khan, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Vonya Quarles, Ramona Ripston, Bamby Salcedo, Upton Sinclair, Theresa Smith & Caesar Cruz, Phal Sok, and Ali Vayeghan & Marjan Vayghan. Learn more about the people depicted in the mural on ACLU SoCal’s website. 

Chan is an artist, writer, and educator. She served as a visiting faculty in the CalArts School of Art in 2019-2020 and is the recipient of numerous grants and residencies, including a 2020 Sam Francis Gallery residency and a 2015 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Artist Grant. In 2018, Chan’s work was included in Time and Space | 122 Hours of Ink, a collection of works by LA-based artists. 

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