Tenochtitlan Mural Blessing

Our most sacred Indigenous mural in Highland Park, Northeast Los Angeles is currently threatened to be erased, and we urgently ask for your support in our efforts to organize a community blessing to protect the mural. The mural called Tenochtitlan, The Wall That Talks is legally registered with the Department of Cultural Affairs, recognized as a Vintage Artist Mural (VAM) under the mural ordinance which was completed in 1996, and considered a “work of stature” by the community. The mural site, located along the current Dollar Deals Store and ZMS Academy at 6029 & 6039 N. Figueroa Blvd, was sold for 5.8 million dollars in August 2019 to Fig Crossing LLC 9440 Santa Monica Blvd Suite 700, Beverly Hills 90210. The new owners at Fig Crossing plan to erase our sacred imagery and profound Indigenous iconography in order to install windows for commercial sales. 

The gathering to save Tenochtitlan will begin with a blessing by elders, healers, and a group of Aztec dancers. As a ceremony to protect the indigenous images against harm, this ceremony invokes our ancestral roots to ensure our future well-being. We are calling upon their strength and fortitude against this injustice. Please come out to join us in the blessing as we move forward with further actions to protect our sacred mural from destruction. Highland Park Natives from El Rio band will be performing at this blessed event. Please come out to hear our community speak out against the sacrilegious act of erasure

Restorative Justice For The Arts is a grassroots artivism and research project that investigates gentrification as a form of internal colonialism in Highland Park that continuously feeds L.A.’s homelessness crisis. Discrimination and racism have single-handedly contributed to the mass erasure of Indigenous and cultural murals in major cities across the nation.