Students hold forum as part of Arts ReSTORE LA

The old, vacant Chili’s restaurant in Westwood is no longer a space where food is served, but rather where art is shared.

Currently occupied by the Hammer Student Association and other UCLA student organizations and clubs, the building has been transformed into the student-run OPEN FORUM as part of the Hammer Museum’s initiative Arts ReSTORE LA: Westwood.

The nearly monthlong program was designed to revitalize Westwood Village by filling vacant storefronts in the neighborhood with artisan vendors. These select student groups were invited to run an art space off campus by occupying, designing and programming events such as dance workshops and musical performances in the OPEN FORUM storefront from Nov. 1 to Nov. 24.

“It’s like one of those things you hear college kids get to do in really small towns in the middle of nowhere,” said Hana Cohn, a fourth-year fine arts student and president of the Hammer Student Association. “A store went out of business, and so we just took over.”

The Hammer Student Association, a UCLA student organization dedicated to creating programs for students at the Hammer Museum year-round, was first approached to participate in Arts ReSTORE LA: Westwood last spring when the Hammer Museum entered the Goldhirsh Foundation’s My LA2050 challenge in an attempt to win a $100,000 grant for Arts ReSTORE. Cohn said the student participation aspect of the program was initially vague, and that the group would have been satisfied with any form of involvement.

“When we were first given the opportunity for the project, it was so out there and felt sort of like a daydream, a fantasy. I don’t want to say our expectations were low, but we were just happy to get anything we could get our hands on,” Cohn said.

However, after the Hammer Museum won the grant, Cohn said the reality and scope of the program came into focus. The Hammer Student Association started planning events such as their Ping-Pong and DJ Night after receiving the empty shell of the Chili’s building at 1056 Westwood Boulevard to work with, a storefront that had been vacated about three years prior.

Cohn said Hammer Student Association co-chair of the communications committee and third-year Design | Media Arts student Jesse Stecklow took charge of the renovation process, and filled the former restaurant with milk crate seats, bookcases, posters, plant hangers and extra lights simply to make the building usable for the OPEN FORUM.

Nothing is permanently fixed to the ground or walls though, as the location is designed to take on multiple identities and layouts, Cohn said.

“It wasn’t just a gallery, a stage or a jazz club, but had the potential to be all three of these things,” Cohn said.

The Hammer Museum’s associate director of academic programs Sue Bell Yank helped oversee this rebranding of the space, while also finding other student organizations on campus to create events and workshops for the OPEN FORUM throughout the Arts ReSTORE program.

Through a series of recommendations from art professors and students, Yank said she reached out to student groups that she thought were doing interesting work and could handle the demands of running an event space for multiple weekends on end.

Some of the chosen groups besides the Hammer Student Association include student performers from the world arts and cultures/dance department, the Student Committee for the Arts at UCLA, the UCLA Game Lab and the UCLA Student Food Collective.

A pop-up arcade featuring video games and custom-built arcade cabinets presented by UCLA Game Lab and a do-it-yourself sustainable food seminar are just a few of the events the OPEN FORUM will offer this last weekend of the program.

Stecklow said events like these have been well attended the last few weekends, and that he and other students running some of these programs would benefit from having a space like the OPEN FORUM long term because of the amount of creative independence they have over their projects.

“I think (the students) who are hosting events are enjoying the kind of agency they have in putting something on outside of … the UCLA campus,” Stecklow said. “And I think they are excited to (have this amount of control) over a project.”

Yank said she had a similar sentiment, and believed the institutional environment and standards of presentation expected at prestigious locations such as Royce Hall and the Hammer Museum sometimes limited creative freedoms for student performers to fully design their own project.

As for a long-term student-run space like the OPEN FORUM, Yank said the Hammer Museum would fully support such a location, but that logistical and pragmatic matters, such as who would find and maintain the space, would need to be settled before moving forward with the project.

Even though the OPEN FORUM and Arts ReSTORE LA: Westwood are wrapping up this weekend, the Hammer Museum Director of Communications Sarah Stifler said it was important to include UCLA students in the program because of their ability to transform a space as well as establish their place in Westwood.

“We know we can be helpful and that we can help guide, but harnessing the creative energies of the students is a really great thing too,” Stifler said. “It’s important to the neighborhood (because students) are as much a part of Westwood as (any other resident).”