Created by artist Rosten Woo and commissioned by Clockshop, this narrative walk leads viewers through an undeveloped parcel of land known as the Bowtie, identifying points of interest and speculation. Visitors can take the narrative walk by borrowing a pamphlet from a box on site (located adjacent to a sign) or by following along via an audio guide at bowtiewalk.org. The guides use the Bowtie Parcel’s landscape as a site for thinking about such topics as the aesthetics of power transmission, the politics of native landscape design, the chemistry of bitterness, and the economics of vapor infiltration.

Bowtie Parcel Nature Walk by Rosten Woo

Radio Imagination is a yearlong project that celebrated the life and work of science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler. Organized by Clockshop, the 2016 program centered on 10 artistic and literary commissions that explored Butler’s papers at the Huntington Library.  The project also included 14 public programs and the 11 podcast episodes featured on this playlist. More information is available at clockshop.org/project/radio-imagination/

Radio Imagination podcast

Counter-Inaugural recordings

South of Fletcher: Stories from the Bowtie

TMTYR: Kruegermann talks about growing up in Frogtown

TMTYR: Ruth talks about addressing park gentrification

TMTYR: Ruth talks about the planning of LA State Historic Park

TMTYR: Melanie talks about transforming the river

TMTYR: David talks about neighborhood dangers and relationships in the 1980s

TMTYR: Ed talks about busing students into UCLA

TMTYR: Ceci talks about Metrolink

In January 2024, park-goers joined Theresa Hwang, Molly Rysman, and Sissy Trinh in an illuminating conversation that activated the site of Rodrigo Valenzuela’s installation, 'the underpinning,' in Los Angeles State Historic Park through an exploration of urban planning grounded in the legacies of Chinatown and the surrounding neighborhoods. The speakers delved into the current landscape of housing in Los Angeles, drawing connections between systems of power and harm, the segregationist histories of land use, and the negotiations made by communities and policymakers when envisioning cultural infrastructures that reflect the identity and center the wellbeing of residents.

'the underpinning' conversation

On Saturday, February 24 2024, artist Rodrigo Valenzuela led a walk-through of 'the underpinning,' where he and attendees cultivated a bilingual dialogue, reflecting on the ways we relate to our built environments. Valenzuela explored the shared and divergent histories of government housing in Chile and the architectures of public housing in Los Angeles, and how each are distilled into the form of the installation to evoke possibility and resist a delimited conception of home.

'the underpinning' walk through with Rodrigo Valenzuela (Spanish)

Preview 'What Water Wants' and join us for the full experience. 
Learn more here: https://clockshop.org/project/what-water-wants/

In a 30-minute binaural audio experience, Rosten Woo activates the Glendale Narrows channel as an aperture to situate visitors within the hydrological networks of the greater Los Angeles Basin, one of the city’s most misunderstood and complex infrastructural systems. The audio tour moves between a guided meditation and speculative disaster horror, evoking multiple perspectives of the river’s history and future.

Preview: What Water Wants by Rosten Woo

On February 9, 2025 a crowd assembled around the conglomeration of sculptures that comprise 'Por El Río,' some reclining against one benches’ concrete curvatures and others in the cast shadows of towering chainlink. Their attention was directed toward artists Christopher Suarez and Carlos Agredano, who were brought into conversation with Clockshop’s Director of Artistic Projects, cat yang, to discuss how their practices evolved over the course of this project. Suarez, seated on his own structure of compacted earth, reflected on his choice to collaborate with those who had been instrumental in his development as an artist and how, over the course of intense cross-pollination, conversation, and the co-facilitation of a series of community workshops, these ties had strengthened immeasurably.

Closing Reception; Por El Río

Join us as we use the archives of Octavia E. Butler to examine the work, influence and legacy of the world's most unique voices.

Welcome to Radio Imagination

Writers Tisa Bryant, Lynell George, Robin Coste Lewis, and Fred Moten premiere new works of poetry and creative nonfiction under the stars in the Clockshop courtyard. For these commissions, each writer spent an extended period of time working in the Octavia E. Butler archive at The Huntington Library.

Radio Imagination: Writers Premiere New Works

Merrilee Heifetz met Octavia E. Butler as a young agent looking for writers. What followed was 20 years of letters, conversations and insights into someone breaking the borders of fiction.

Radio Imagination: A Writer and Her Agent

How a kitchy sci-fi film became a source of inspiration for Octavia E. Butler and the writers who came after her.

Radio Imagination: 'Devil Girl' as Anti-Muse

Octavia E. Butler died unexpectedly at 58. After her death, a group of curators and writers have sorted through her papers, working to reveal the writer and thinker we didn't come to know in her lifetime.

Radio Imagination: Archiving a Writer's Life

Butler rode the bus for nearly an hour everyday to get to the Central Library downtown—reading, writing and researching. What does her dedication to public libraries tell us about who she was as a writer?

Radio Imagination

Radio Imagination: Heading to Work With Octavia E. Butler

In a city as big as Los Angeles with such a well-documented car culture, we often hear that you need a car in LA.  But what can the experience of public transit offer a writer?  What about an artist? In this episode, we take a ride from West Hollywood to Downtown with commissioned Radio Imagination artist and LA-native Lauren Halsey.  Halsey’s work takes inspiration from her neighborhood in South LA and the visual culture of small businesses throughout Los Angeles.  Like Butler, she gets around on public transit, but there was a time when she used to drive...

Clockshop

Radio Imagination: Riding the Bus with Lauren Halsey

UK journalist Laurie Penny has been covering the 2016 presidential campaign through a feminist lens with dark wit and an eye toward her native country’s alarming Brexit vote last summer. On January 10, 2017, Penny was joined in conversation by Neelanjana Banerjee, managing editor at Kaya Press, to discuss misogyny, sexism and female flesh under capitalism. This event was co-presented with Women’s Center for Creative Work.

Suggested reading:

“Against Bargaining” Laurie Penny, The Baffler, November 18, 2016
“I’m With the Banned” Laurie Penny, Medium, July 21, 2016
“What Women Problem?” Laurie Penny, Medium, July 18, 2016

Clockshop’s Counter-Inaugural is a series of talks addressing the misogyny, hate speech, and climate change denial that dominated the 2016 presidential campaign. This event was recorded by Rounak Maiti.

Counter-Inaugural: Laurie Penny with Neelanjana Banerjee

Lynda V. Mapes has been reporting on environmental issues for the Seattle Times since 1997 with a specific focus on river health and Native American communities.  These points of focus merged in her 2016 coverage of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock.  On January 24, 2017, Mapes was joined in conversation by mark! Lopez, executive director of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. Much of Lopez’s organizing takes place in communities adjacent to the southern portion of the Los Angeles River.  In this conversation, Mapes and Lopez spoke about what we’ve learned from Standing Rock, and how those lessons relate to LA River revitalization.  This event was co-presented with California State Parks and Friends of the Los Angeles River.

Suggested Reading & Listening

Will the Los Angeles River Become a Playground for the Rich? Richard Kreitner, The Nation, March 10, 2016

Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline… ft. Lynda V. Mapes, The Overcast podcast, November 4, 2016

Exposing Injustice at the LA River Christian L. Guzman, Random Lengths News, September 2, 2016

This event was part of Clockshop’s Counter-Inaugural, a series of talks addressing the misogyny, hate speech, and climate change denial that dominated the 2016 presidential campaign. It was recorded by Andrew Kim.

Counter-Inaugural: Lynda V. Mapes with mark! Lopez

On January 31, 2017, Robin D.G. Kelley and Robin Coste Lewis reflected on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” This letter was written in response to a public statement of concern issued by eight white religious leaders of the American South about the civil rights movement’s tactics of nonviolent direct action. Kelley and Lewis reflected on this historic document, and discussed what we can learn now from the resistance strategies King championed.

Suggested Reading & Viewing

Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 16, 1963

Beyond Vietnam, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967

I Am Not Your Negro, Raoul Peck, screening January 30, 2017 at the Hammer Museum

This event was part of Clockshop’s Counter-Inaugural, a series of talks addressing the misogyny, hate speech, and climate change denial that dominated the 2016 presidential campaign. It was recorded by Tom Carroll.

Counter-Inaugural: Robin D.G. Kelley with Robin Coste Lewis

On March 21, 2017, Timothy Snyder joined us to discuss his new best-selling book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. In this book, Snyder offers readers a guide to identifying and understanding the frightening parallels that exist between our current reality and the realities faced by Europeans of the twentieth century during the Third Reich. 

For more information about this event visit http://clockshop.org/event/timothy-snyder-on-tyranny/

Counter-Inaugural: Timothy Snyder

On April 4, 2017, Rudy Espinoza, CEO of Leadership for Urban Renewal Network and Dan Flaming, President of the Economic Roundtable joined us to discuss their work and ideas on income inequality.

For more information about this event, visit http://clockshop.org/event/rudy-espinoza-dan-flaming/

Counter-Inaugural: Rudy Espinoza And Dan Flaming

Rosten Woo's guided tour of the Bowtie Project.

5. A non-native landscape

4. Runes

3. What is a river?

2. A native landscape

1. Intro + Labeling the world

South of Fletcher: Stories from the Bowtie is a multi-platform storytelling project by Fonografia Collective that will launch this September.

Follow along as we explore the rhythms of this unique site on the brink of major change.

South of Fletcher: Stories from the Bowtie Intro

Back in the '70s, the Bowtie Parcel was a bustling rail depot better known as Taylor Yard; a place where Southern Pacific diesel trains came from throughout Southern California for maintenance and repairs. In this episode, Bob Ramírez & Don Tortorice share what it was like to work at the site.

South of Fletcher

South of Fletcher: Taylor Yard

How do we thrive in less-than-ideal living conditions? In this episode Rux and Bear talk with CA State Parks certified interpretive specialist Luis Rincon, ecological historian Travis Longcore, and longtime Frogtown/Atwater resident Liz Vega about disturbance at the Bowtie and its surrounding communities.

South of Fletcher: Disturbance

There's only one way into and out of the Bowtie — through the Pocket. This little section of Atwater Village, sandwiched between Fletcher Drive the 2 freeway, is home to a diverse community with mixed feelings about the soon-to-be-park next door.

South of Fletcher: The Pocket

The Bowtie is a rare plot of wide open space in a city that's becoming more densely populated by the day. What will happen when the site becomes a park? Who will get to use it?

South of Fletcher: Open Space for Everyone

Clockshop is an arts and culture organization that seeks to generate social change through the transformation of public space.

Clockshop

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