It wasn't my first time at Leimert Park, but the first time I heard their famous drum circles, it made me stop in my tracks. They played to the same beat but each drummer had their own part to play. Growing up in school bands, I remember the joy in creating and the joint accolade we awarded one another in our progress which is why I was so excited by this community forming at the park.

LA Commons is a part of this community and was formed to aid in its continued existence and that of other communities in Los Angeles. A local non-profit that hosts art-based events in public spaces in different neighborhoods, LA Commons is oriented towards giving artists a voice and empowering communities to have their own platforms of artistic expression of different forms. The organization was founded by Karen Mack, who also serves as a LA City Planning commissioner, twenty years ago, because she felt that social capital, "the foundation of social change," was lacking in LA and has remained the motivator for LA Commons.

LA Commons creates the opportunity for like-minded individuals to gather. Just like the drummers in their circle playing different rhythms, it facilitates the celebration of different cultures. LA Commons also fosters engagement across generations, forming intergenerational bonds and nurturing youth leaders. These connections between cultures and communities is significant because, according to Mack, the “tactic of colonizers” was to promote separation; however, as she suggests, we build strength through connection and community building.

LA Commons chooses to work in neighborhoods that are underinvested as one of their essential values is community empowerment and being able to bring access to artistic participation, creating space for communities to learn more about one another through art and to challenge stereotypes and racism that pervade our social infrastructure. There is a myriad of challenges they face in bringing people together across different neighborhoods such as lack of trust or geography and the sprawling nature of Los Angeles. Yet the organization remains determined in creating space for individuals who would not otherwise have a place to share their art, commemorate their culture, or learn about one another free of judgment.

LA Commons values creativity as an animating force behind their programs and engages the community through the spiritual power of art to empower them through artistic participation- art that reflects the community, and forms connection to self and others. In engaging the process of creating, they foster radical joy by affirming cultural and racial identities that society may not.

This organization has not only overcome challenges in bringing communities together, but also those presented by spatial barriers of Los Angeles. Their headquarters are situated centrally in Leimert Park which represents a neighborhood that the organization has close ties to and where the programs offered would better meet the communities that are underserved. They have hosted events and helped in art installations at locations including Leimert Park, Hyde Park, MacArthur Park, Expo Park, Willowbrook, Little Tokyo, etc.

By utilizing parks and other public spaces in different ways, LA Commons bends space through this repurposing of places that have been previously imagined in limiting ways. Parks are no longer just scenic environments to enjoy but rather places to congregate and create. As the availability and access to public space in the city of Los Angeles continue to dwindle, LA Commons' work represents radical opposition to the invisible hand of oppression and segregation in LA. It evades spatial control by taking this narrative into the community's own hands and culminating power in the spaces they are limited to through connections and communal support. They intentionally transform spaces into places that engender community and connection with others through art.

RAP has partnered with LA Commons on multiple occasions over the years. Among RAP's core values are the multiplicity and variability of the arts which LA Commons truly exemplifies through its embrace of countless modes of expression including painting, dancing, writing, etc at events such as the Festival of Masks. This partnership has promoted this reimagining of not only art but also space and the ways that we engage in placemaking through the arts, as forms of activation and advocating.

At the nexus of arts and urban planning, their collaborations have fostered the reenvisioning of cities from an artistic perspective and community-building perspective that allows for creativity and a shift away from primarily quantifiable measures of success.