When issues such as spacial injustice in Los Angeles are represented by the elite circles

Urban planning throughout history has long been operated as a tool of political control and economic dominance, disproportionately impacting vulnerable communities through zoning laws, highway construction, and patterns of displacement, which is also the case for Los Angeles. In the past years, we have seen countless Los Angeles-focused projects or grants that draw our attention to the social and political make-up of the city, while they do provide some valid discourses about the spatial injustice. Most of these representations of this systemic injustice remain limited because of how the art industry is shaped in Los Angeles.

A quote from the scholar Mary M. Thomas concludes very well what the problem is: “the politics of recognition within the art world often mirror the spatial politics of the city itself”, meaning what is being seen or advocated within the institutional art circle reflects the often commercial benefit that cycles within the elite circles, rather than what is socially benefiting to those oppressed due to unjust urban planning. The individual artists that the market or the industry promote are also within that elite network, either graduating from top art colleges or having connections with important figures. Though that is not to say there is anything wrong with that. But when we are looking at themes such as spatial injustice, or any other socially aware topic, it is essential to think about the context, the representation, and who is excluded from that narrative.