Nº 04Documentary Photography & FilmVenice Beach

This is
Venice

The place that raised me, on its own terms — filmed over a year of mornings.

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Title card: 'This is Venice, Part I' over tall palms, Venice Beach
Part 101
Title card: 'This is Venice, Part II' — a man on a grassy rise by the kinetic sculpture, Venice Beach
Part 202
Title card: 'This is Venice, Part III' over a Venice street — 'My name is Sergio Perez Junior'
Part 303
Title card: 'This is Venice, Part IV' at the kinetic wind sculpture — 'Growing up in Venice'
Part 404

A documentary photography and film project on Venice Beach — the Los Angeles neighborhood that raised me.

Venice has long existed in contradiction — a haven that became one of the most commodified stretches of coastline in Los Angeles.

Shot across the streets, walls, and gathering places of the neighborhood where I was raised, This Is Venice moves between personal memory and collective history, tracing the tension between a place's soul and the forces that seek to own it. From the Great Western Steak & Hoagie, feeding the community since 1973, to the graffiti walls that rose from the ruins of the Venice Pavilion's Pit, the work asks what it means to belong to a place that no longer belongs to you.

Graffiti, here, is not vandalism. It is documentation. Artists risking arrest to be seen, to mark a moment before it disappears. This Is Venice is both a love letter and a reckoning.

The city still has its soul. I'm still looking for my place in it.

The Vera Davis McClendon Youth & Family Community Center entrance, traffic cones outside, Venice
A maroon vintage Ford Falcon parked before a mid-century house with cacti, Venice
A teal Craftsman bungalow with a red door behind a green fence, Venice
Young men on the Venice Beach basketball courts by the boardwalk shops
The Venice Beach kinetic steel sculpture against the sun and palms
A young man in headphones and a hoodie at the Venice skate park
Skaters at the Venice Beach skate park with the beach beyond
A skateboarder mid-trick at the Venice skate park, palms and boardwalk behind
Skaters and the kinetic sculpture among the palms at Venice Beach
The Venice boardwalk crowd at golden hour, a bride in white among the tourists
A man playing guitar on a grassy dune at golden hour, Venice Beach
A muralled Venice building with a painted climber scaling its wall
A man in a Baja hoodie and leopard hat raising his hand, a portrait at Venice Beach
A smiling woman with blue hair and a leopard coat posing before an orange building, Venice
A grinning man in goggles holding his black dog on the grass, Venice
A colourful orange-and-teal Venice house with an exterior staircase and plants
Two friends posing together on the boardwalk, one with dreadlocks, Venice
A portrait of a long-haired man in a 'Good Grief' hoodie, Venice
A man seated in a canopied bike-cart piled with belongings, Venice
Palms and the kinetic sculpture silhouetted against the Venice Beach sunset
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This is VeniceJacob Sigala