Photo: Natasha SadikinLA-based artist Nova Jiang has created a large-scale version of a plastic model kit complete with its surrounding frame for a new public artwork that hangs in a shopping center in the San Fernando Valley. Called Red Car it's based on the Pacific Electric aka the Red Car system. The famed public transport system (paid homage to in L.A. Noire, The Simpsons, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit) that connected Los Angeles to surrounding counties.
Advertisement
"It's modelled in a way that if you were to shrink it down, a child would be able to put it together," explains Jiang in the video below. The 22ft x 15ft painted aluminum sculpture, co-commissioned by Westfield and UCLA Arts, sits not far from one of the old terminal stations of the Pacific Electric San Fernando Valley line and is a nod to the heritage of the transit system. A system which helped shape and form the area giving rise to the suburban sprawl which came to replace the cattle ranches and fields. Eventually the system was consigned to history when freeways and the car came to replace it as the go-to mode of popular transport.
Photo: Natasha SadikinJiang wanted the piece to be as accurate to the original streetcars as possible but representing it as a toy model kit, also wanted to "promote a sense of playfulness." And in an age where individualism rules—from the private space of our cars to the virtual confines of our smartphones—the transport system represents a form of connectedness."There's a lot of symbolism in the structure of Red Car," Jiang notes. "I think it's quite an optimistic piece, because even though all the different parts lie disassembled right now, it has this potential of being put back together again. I have this utopian vision of LA, the ease of hopping from A to B and being together as a society in that way."
ONE EMAIL. ONE STORY. EVERY WEEK. SIGN UP FOR THE VICE NEWSLETTER.
By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.
