City Hall Mural Phase One Recommendations
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The Recommendations
On February 13, 2024, City Council reviewed the final report from meztli projects (view here) and approved all nine recommendations that arose from the community engagement process, adding a tenth recommendation. Here are the recommendations in full.
Recommendation 1: Commission new artwork in City Hall lobby
This emerged as the highest priority. New artwork should present history from different perspectives and celebrate and reframe what is traditionally presented as “historically significant.” City Hall is a center of power, and the new work needs to balance or redress the exclusions exemplified in the existing mural. The new work should address the hierarchies in the southwest panels as well— Black, Brown, Asian American, working-class people, unemployed people, and poor people who all existed in Santa Monica in 1939, and deal with themes of ongoing Indigenous presence in Santa Monica. The new work should create a welcoming environment for Indigenous people, working-class people, and people of color.
Recommendation 2: Commission new interpretive panels
The City should create interpretive panels that condemn colonization, forced religious conversion, white supremacy generally and the mural’s portrayal of First Peoples in particular. These panels should be written by an advisory group including an Indigenous person and other people of color and should be at a scale and placement that is unmissable for viewers of the mural, ideally installed in close visual proximity.
Recommendation 3: Ensure that Santa Monica’s public art and commemorative landscape centers equity and belonging
The Reframe: City Hall Mural process should be the beginning of a series of steps taken by the city of Santa Monica to revisit the policies and processes that govern public artwork and civic memory, including processes to support emerging and underrepresented artists in receiving new commissions. As part of this, the City should conduct a survey of the existing public art, monuments and sites of civic memory throughout Santa Monica, so that gaps and opportunities can be identified. The City should also commission new artwork on the theme of inclusion and representing other views of Santa Monica’s history in a location that is much more publicly visible and meaningful.
Recommendation 4: Create additional educational materials about the mural
Many believe that the mural can serve an educational purpose. All agreed that this would be a deep challenge and not something to be taken on lightly. Many felt that City staff are ill-equipped to do this work and would need substantive partnerships with other institutions to make this meaningful. This is a good opportunity for Santa Monica to invest in the creative and scholarly development of underrepresented communities.
BEYOND THE MURAL AND NEW ARTWORK
There was an extremely high level of agreement amongst the Working Circle that the City’s response should not be limited to actions related to the cultural sphere or the City Hall Lobby and that the City should act to materially address issues related to the exclusions seen in the mural. Centering the perspectives of First Peoples and “doing something concrete” were highly rated values consistent with the following recommendations. Implementation of the following recommendations would require collaboration and resources and may be considered in the context of developing a Citywide Equity Plan.
Recommendation 5: Expand DEI+ trainings for City staff
City should build on actions taken since its Racial Equity Statement of 2020, which included the formation of an Office of Equity and Inclusion and the subsequent launch of an Equity Plan process. It should expand DEI training for all City staff. To be successful, future efforts should focus on implementation strategies and tools for staff, moving away from a white worldview and centering the overlapping experiences, shared spaces and mutual accountability of underrepresented peoples.
Recommendation 6: Adopt a Citywide land/territory acknowledgment initiative
Land Acknowledgements, although extremely important, can become diluted as these acknowledgments are the bare minimum of the protocols from which they originate. Santa Monica has an opportunity to adopt a city-wide land acknowledgment initiative that includes the actionable practices such as a new Indigenous Advisory Council (IAC) to help advise its decision-makers on issues similar to those raised through Reframe.10
Recommendation 7: Improve representation on Santa Monica committees
As of the writing of this report there are no First Peoples serving as part of the Arts Commission or Landmarks Commission, among other bodies. Some of the issues raised from the City Hall Mural could have been mitigated if members of the communities excluded from and/or misrepresented in the mural had been included in these kinds of decision-making bodies.
Recommendation 8: Facilitate Land Back in Santa Monica
There is an opportunity for Santa Monica to develop creative ways for First Peoples communities to practice sovereignty and self-determination. Santa Monica could partner with First Peoples to create opportunities for their members to return home.
Recommendation 9: Facilitate Kuruvungna Springs relationships
While the location is not in Santa Monica, Working Circle members strongly agreed that the city of Santa Monica should continue to build relationships with the Kuruvungna Springs Foundation and support their efforts to have the land transferred back to them.
Recommendation 10: Staff to consider a restorative justice approach to repair harm of past actions of the city of Santa Monica impacting diverse groups from various heritages and cultures.
The City Hall mural and the controversy around it have created a rare and critical focal point of civic energy. The key is not to squander the moment and let it further perpetuate ill-will and distrust, but rather to use it to move towards equity, justice and a better Santa Monica. The mural has provided an incredible opportunity to reframe the conversation.