Zillionaires Against Humanity: Sabotaging the Skid Row Neighborhood Council

Hillary Clinton to ask “What Happened?” You don’t have to be Russian to subvert an election. When there’s money to be made. This exhibition, Zillionaires Against Humanity: Sabotaging the Skid Row Neighborhood Council, examines through cartoons, photos, videos, documents and ephemera, the outsized investment and great lengths gone to by downtown powerbrokers, to subvert the sub-division election that would have given the Skid Row Neighborhood its own neighborhood council.
* November 25, 2015- Los Angeles City Council adopted a “subdivision Ordinance” for neighborhood councils.
*Skid Row, tired of having minority representation and seeing its interests neglected by the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (DLANC) organized and submitted a sub-division application.  
*April 6, 2017, the Skid Row subdivision election was held, the first sub-division election in the city.  
The sub-division was defeated by 60 votes.
*May 3rd, 2017- The vote was appealed and the Election Challenge Review Panel ruled that due to last minute changes in procedures and questionable election practices by the anti-subdivision forces, that Skid Row should either be awarded its own neighborhood council outright or a new vote should be taken.  
*May 19, 2017-The City’s Department of Neighborhood Empowerment ignored the appeals panel’s recommendations and certified the original election results.  
Subsequently, through California Public Records Act requests, new material has come to light that reveals how the election was subverted and the Skid Row Neighborhood Council defeated.
The elements of the exhibition: illustrations and narrative from Adrian Riskin’s California Public Records Act inquiry into what really happened from his blog, michaelkohlhaas.org; documents of the entire process provided by the Skid Row Neighborhood Council (SRNC) Formation Committee; and videos of different stages of the civic process by Linus Shento and photos and ephemera from the SRNC campaign.
Contributors and their Contributions:Adrian Riskin: “The subject of this exhibit is the coordinated effort by the Downtown power elite beginning in 2017 to prevent the establishment of a neighborhood council in Skid Row. Riskin’s contribution to the exhibition consists of twenty-one illustrations created for the blog michaelkohlhaas.org. These portraits mockingly depict various players in the overlapping conspiracies formed to prevent the formation of the SRNC.” Adrian Riskin was born and raised in Los Angeles. He blogs obsessively at michaelkohlhaas.org about business improvement districts and the hallucinatory intricacies of municipal political power.
Skid Row Neighborhood Council Formation Committee: Compiled by General Jeff, SRNC-Formation Committee Chair, “The Skid Row Neighborhood Council Subdivision Election Timeline” is a living, breathing document that is still active. This show at the Skid Row History Museum and Archive is the first time it is being shown publicly, albeit in abbreviated fashion.
Linus Shentu covered the process of the sub-division process, attending meetings, covering events and filming promotional testimonials by Skid Row resident supporters. Linus Shentu’s work reflects his passion for social justice regarding issues pertaining to class, race, poverty and the disenfranchised. He has a B.A. in History from the California State University of Los Angeles and a B.F.A. from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena where he studied graphic design and photography.
The Skid Row History Museum and Archive is an exhibition /performing arts space curated by LAPD. It foregrounds the distinctive artistic and historical consciousness of Skid Row, a 40-year-old social experiment. The Skid Row History Museum and Archive functions as a means for exploring the mechanics of displacement in an age of immense income inequality, by mining a neighborhood’s activist history and amplifying effective community strategies. The space operates as an archive, exhibition, performance and meeting space. Exhibitions focus on grassroots strategies that have preserved the neighborhood from successive threats of gentrification and displacement, to be studied for current adaptation and use. The space is activated by: exhibitions, workshops, performances, community meetings and films addressing gentrification and displacement locally, nationally and globally.
About the Los Angeles Poverty DepartmentCurrently celebrating its 33th year, Los Angeles Poverty Department was the first ongoing arts initiative on Skid Row. LAPD creates performances and multidisciplinary artworks that connect the experience of people living in poverty to the social forces that shape their lives and communities. LAPD’s works express the realities, hopes, dreams and rights of people who live and work in L.A.'s Skid Row. LAPD has created projects with communities throughout the US and in The Netherlands, France, Belgium and Bolivia.
For Further Information on the Exhibition and Special Events Please call or email info@lapovertydept.org