Featured artists/practitioners discuss their contributions to Botanica Los Angeles and explain the ways in which altars and shrines reflect their personal experiences, aesthetic ideals, and spiritual beliefs. Following the panel, artists will provide commentary on their installations in the gallery.

Sunday, December 5, 2004
2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Fowler Museum of Cultural History
UCLA campus
Westwood and Sunset
Los Angeles, CA 90095

2 PM - Panel Discussion, Lenart Auditorium

3:30 - 5 PM - In-Gallery Commentary

Part spiritual center, part religious supply house, and part alternative healthcare facility, the botanica is fast becoming a key feature of LA's sacred, social, and visual landscape.  Opening with an eye-catching recreation of a typical botanica, chock-full of sacred objects generally offered for sale, the exhibition continues with a series of elaborate altars dedicated to deities associated with Espiritismo, Afro-Cuban Santeria., Catholicism, and other traditions that showcase both the diversity and commonalities among botanicas in Southern California.  Come explore these fascinating venues, the objects in them, and their role in transmitting, transforming, and critiquing traditional systems of belief.
For directions, maps, and parking information, please visit

www.fowler.ucla.edu/incEngine/?content=cm&cm=maps

If you would like to visit the exhibits at the museum, it is open Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. Thursday until 8 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday. Museum tours: School and group tours in English and Spanish are free to the public and can be arranged by calling the Museum's Education Department at 310-206-5663 or emailing the Education Department, trini3@arts.ucla.edu For parking, maps, etc., please see above.

Cost : Free and open to the public. Parking is available for $7 in lot 4.

www.fowler.ucla.edu

Sponsor(s): Fowler Museum at UCLA