The Ark and the Archive: Exploring the Legacy of the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra through Ephemera

The Ark and The Archive: Exploring the Legacy of the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra through Ephemera” at 2220 Arts + Archives.

On the exhibition:

Established by pianist Horace Tapscott and close associates in 1961, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra is a Los Angeles-based jazz ensemble originating in the Black community of South Central. Through a curated selection of never publicly displayed archival materials – including images, videos, and ephemera – from both the Tapscott archive at UCLA Library and from Arkestra members’ personal archives, the exhibition invites visitors to explore the band’s enduring and complex legacy over the past six decades. The exhibition opens on Sunday, July 23rd with a screening of Larry Clark’s 1973 As Above So Below film (digital presentation courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive), and closes on Saturday, July 29 with a free public conversation on Black community arts in LA with Kamau Dáaood and Ben Caldwell (moderated by Samuel Lamontagne), and a ticketed live performance by the Arkestra.