Crenshaw Dairy Mart’s installation speaks to their imagination of a world lived within an abolitionist mainframe—one where the disastrous effects of racism and structural inequity on pandemic response might have been mitigated—to help us ask the questions: Where can we go for people to cry and grieve? What do we want our bodies to feel like (again)?

Crenshaw Dairy Mart describes its project at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary as an “Abolitionist Self-Sustaining Pod and Autonomous Garden.” It is a community garden in the form of a geodesic dome, and is the first prototype for a design the group hopes to implement across Los Angeles. The MOCA presentation will thus be the launching pad for CDM’s ambitious effort to create community gardening and collective gathering spaces across the city. abolitionist pod (prototype) will be a cornerstone of #PrayforLA, which will emerge through a series of installations across the City of Angels as healing centers, sanitation stations and greenhouses in the form of circular domes and pods. The installations utilize space frames and are modular, with the aim of eventually being used for a pilot program to combat houselessness, food insecurity and COVID-19 in Los Angeles.

“We are in collective grief with the impact that racism and the lack of a healthcare infrastructure has had on communities of color and we have developed this project as a coalition of artists and organizations committed to the transformative capacities of art, healing and prayer organizing in this moment for our community in need.”
-(Patrisse Cullors, Alexandre Dorriz, noé olivas)