The Layers of the Land: Urban Space and the Urban Environment in Judy Baca's The Great Wall of Los Angeles

Abstract: Judy Baca's The Great Wall of Los Angeles is a massively scaled muralistic retelling of the history of California from the perspective of marginalized groups, located on a concrete tributary of the Los Angeles River. Here, I argue that this landmark of Chicana muralism bridges understandings of "urban space" and the "urban environment," offering a space to reassess the environmentalisms (plural) of the 1970s and anticipating the concerns of the contemporary environmental justice movement, which emerged in the United States in the 1980s. I consider Baca's position within the Chicana/o Art Movement and her relationship to the LA River, and I address the form, content, and production process of The Great Wall . I also situate the mural alongside the emerging environmental art of the 1970s, contending that Baca's work reroutes the trajectories of this genre and links environmentalist and anticolonial critiques.