Entering Lauren Halsey’s emajendat exhibition at London’s Serpentine Gallery—her first solo show in the UK—feels like stepping into a fantastical dream of South Central Los Angeles—a space layered with color, memories, and resilience. Extending Kensington Gardens into the gallery, Halsey has transformed the space into a kaleidoscopic oasis of technicolor sand dunes, mirrored CD walls, and lush “funkmounds” adorned with sculpted hands that boast intricate nail art—a cultural homage to the Black women of her South Central community. This installation, like her larger body of work, preserves and amplifies South Central LA’s distinct culture and history amid the pressures of urban change. In this immersive sanctuary, Halsey’s unique visual language, inspired by funk and community aesthetics, encourages reflection, remembrance, and celebration.
Halsey describes her aesthetic as “maximalism,” heavily inspired by her neighborhood’s material culture and her admiration for George Clinton’s band, Parliament-Funkadelic. As she explains in her interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Lizzie Carey-Thomas in Lauren Halsey: emajendat, Clinton’s elaborate sets, which included as many as “eighty-three people in the band,” embody “sensorial overload,” a form of freedom Halsey channels into her own work. “Funk is life,” she explains, describing the music’s influence as “oxygen, water, air… my life force,” which, she says, grants her “the conceit and the attitude” to push her work to new heights. In emajendat, this ethos of layered maximalism manifests in intensely immersive, sensory-heavy spaces, reflecting her vision for a series of “funk gardens” in LA.
Lauren Halsey portrait. Credit Eddie Salinas. Courtesy Serpentine.
A Stirring Interest in Architecture and How it Influences Identity
Halsey’s roots in South Central LA, a neighborhood rich with cultural strength and visual vibrancy, form the foundation of her work. Reflecting on her upbringing, she describes her experience of going to school outside her community, making her “both an insider and an outsider every day.” It was through this experience that she first noticed the nuanced differences in “architectural materiality” between areas like South Central and nearby Westchester, such as the prevalence of “bars on windows” and “bulletproof Plexiglas” in her neighborhood, signalling that her community was perceived as “dangerous” or “a threat.” These experiences stirred her initial interest in architecture and how it influences identity.
Her fascination with architecture led her to community college, where she quickly realized that traditional architectural programs were not aligned with her aspirations. Instead, she gravitated towards “fantastical spatial proposals,” a term she uses to describe designs that honour and explore Black and Brown communities. She explains, “I don’t want to just figure out how to make a wall stand up. It should be a lot more expansive than that.” Her early education in architecture helped her develop a visual language that could communicate complex narratives about her community through art.
Influenced by the visionary artist Dominique Moody and inspired by collectives like Archigram, Halsey found an approach to architecture that allowed her to blend her love of set-building with the dream of creating immersive, communal environments. Moody encouraged her to see architecture as “blueprints for dreams” rather than rigid plans, emboldening her to imagine vibrant, layered spaces that reflect South Central’s unique material culture. This blend of disciplines helped her realise, “I wanted to suggest a poetic around a building, a poetic around the spaces of my neighborhood.”
Lauren Halsey, “emajendat,” 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South. © Lauren Halsey. Photo: © Hugo Glendinning. Courtesy Serpentine.
Preserving the Lively Spirit of the Neighborhood through Art
Her journey, marked by a keen eye for her community’s aesthetics, led her to begin documenting the streets of South Central through photography, capturing the vibrant colors, textures, and energy of local stores, swap meets, and street vendors. Her work is a tribute to these spaces and the people who shape them, preserving the lively spirit of the neighborhood through installations like sister dreamer, a permanent sanctuary she envisions for South Central, where “folks can inhabit, chill, and be.” She emphasizes the importance of community ownership in these spaces, explaining, “My community was able to take ownership and author the forms of this spatial imaginary.”
“My community was able to take ownership and author the forms of this spatial imaginary,”
Lauren Halsey
Halsey’s installations are acts of cultural preservation, showcasing the artisans, vendors, and everyday people of South Central LA. Her Serpentine Gallery exhibition features an eclectic collection of figurines—roosters, panthers, and even funky dinosaurs—that were sourced from street vendors and swap meets. These figures populate her “funk garden,” symbolising the aesthetics of her community in everyday objects and textures that are often overlooked. This integration of vernacular objects, she notes, honors a creative culture often “perceived as raggedy, suppressed, poor or of a lower cultural status.” Her work, she says, provides “an alternative narrative” that celebrates the reality of her community “amongst a palette that’s energetic, inviting, and beautiful.”
A particularly powerful part of emajendat includes mirrored palm trees engraved with the faces of Black women lost to violence, inspired by Halsey’s memories of the “Grim Sleeper” murders in South Central. Remembering the tragedy, she recalls how the police “paid him no mind,” ultimately overlooking the safety of Black women in her community—a sentiment Lauren shared in an interview with The Guardian. Through her work, she hopes to honor these women in a way that offers respect and recognition. “One day, I want there to be a grove of mirrored palm trees in South Central, where it’s hundreds of [trees] that acknowledge the [women’s] lives and memorializes them in the right way.”
Lauren Halsey, “emajendat,” 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South. © Lauren Halsey. Photo: © Hugo Glendinning. Courtesy Serpentine.
Lauren Halsey’s First Solo Exhibition in the UK Joins Internationally Acclaimed Endeavors
Though emajendat marks her first solo exhibition in the UK, Halsey’s work has gained significant international acclaim with major shows at venues like the Venice Biennale and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her work at the Met, titled The Eastside of South Central Los Angeles Hieroglyph Prototype Architecture (I), transformed the museum’s roof into a tribute to South Central’s history and spirit, reinforcing her mission to represent her community on a global scale while staying rooted locally. Despite her success, she remains dedicated to her Los Angeles neighborhood, describing her projects as “tethered to those folks and micro-communities that I really love.”
In 2020, she founded the Summaeverythang Community Centre, which provides fresh produce and other resources to South Central residents, underscoring her belief in tangible contributions to her community’s well-being. “What would it mean to make all this work about my community if I’m not contributing tangibly to its transcendence and upkeep?” she asks, expressing a commitment to using her art and resources to help uplift her community, a principle she inherited from her family and neighbors.
“What would it mean to make all this work about my community if I’m not contributing tangibly to its transcendence and upkeep?”
Lauren Halsey
Lauren Halsey, “emajendat,” 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South. © Lauren Halsey. Photo: © Hugo Glendinning. Courtesy Serpentine.
Creativity Deeply Inspired by the Ethos of Funk Music
Halsey’s work is deeply inspired by the ethos of funk music, which she regards as a life-affirming force. She describes the transformative power of reaching a state of “maximum funkmanship,” inspired by Clinton’s “on the One” philosophy, where “everything is on the One, and you’re doing something right.” This mindset of layering, maximalism, and artistic freedom permeates her work, especially in her plans for a series of “funk gardens” in South Central, spaces that offer both beauty and refuge for her community.
With her eye towards the future, Halsey envisions public “funk gardens” that serve as community sanctuaries in South Central LA. In a city where green spaces are often inaccessible or become sites for temporary housing, she sees these gardens as both safe havens and places for celebration. Her ultimate vision is to create a permanent “funk garden” at Jesse Owens Park that encapsulates the spirit of South Central’s vibrant aesthetics and culture. “I’m scaling up, because I also need to problem-solve what it feels like spiritually and energetically for humans to be in this space,” she says, underscoring the importance of designing spaces that resonate with her community’s lived experiences.
“I’m scaling up, because I also need to problem-solve what it feels like spiritually and energetically for humans to be in this space,”
Lauren Halsey
Halsey’s work weaves art, architecture, and activism into transformative environments that invite viewers to see South Central’s beauty, resilience, and culture in a new light. Guided by a sense of responsibility to her community, she sees her role as an artist as more than just an observer but as an active participant. Her practice honors her community’s creativity and history, and she believes in giving back through tangible contributions, expressing a belief that “it’s just what you do no matter what you do. Taking care of ourselves.”
Lauren Halsey, “emajendat,” 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South. © Lauren Halsey. Photo: © Hugo Glendinning. Courtesy Serpentine.
Forging a Legacy that Bridges Community and Activism
With sister dreamer underway and her vision for “funk gardens” taking shape, Lauren Halsey is forging a legacy that bridges community, heritage, and activism. Each installation, each sanctuary she crafts is a profound testament to South Central LA’s soul—a vibrant, multifaceted tribute that refuses stereotypes and amplifies the creative pulse of her neighborhood. Her art, steeped in funk, freedom, and a future-focused vision, extends beyond the gallery walls. It’s a heartfelt commitment to cultural preservation, an unspoken promise to hold space for her community’s resilience, history, and dreams. In her words, “Funk is freedom. It’s my life force. It gives me the conceit and the attitude and the energy to reach my level.” Halsey channels this energy into environments that invite us not only to observe but to engage, decode, and reflect. Through her dynamic vision, she reclaims forgotten spaces, bringing them to life with unapologetic vibrancy. Her art serves as both a call and a sanctuary, bridging the gap between aesthetic beauty and deep social impact, beckoning us to witness, to inhabit, and to celebrate the rich legacy and ongoing evolution of South Central LA.
References:
Halsey, L. (2024). Lauren Halsey: emajendat. New York: Rizzoli.
Quotes from Lauren Halsey’s interview with The Guardian (2024).
