Lauren Halsey Is Manifesting—Imagine That!

In a rare moment for the Hollywood Bowl, the headliner last Tuesday night was not a musical artist. Instead, the top billing belonged to Lauren Halsey, a multimedia and sculpture artist who could be considered South Central’s visual laureate. Halsey presented emajendat, a meticulously curated one-night-only experience that costumed the entirety of the venue’s campus and spirit—staff uniforms, carnival games, 10-foot sculptures outlining credos, a live T-shirt airbrushing station, a fireworks show to rival America’s 250th, and much more. The centerpiece of the night was a stage design in Halsey’s signature visual codex with three distinct, modular phases: a curved, collaged curtain for the first two acts dropped to reveal a fluorescent, pyramidal structure which rotated to become a multi-tiered psychedelic dollhouse for the final act. Halsey must have been an absolute killer at middle school dioramas. 

She also curated the performances, including sets by Erykah Badu & The Alchemist, DJ Pee .Wee (a.k.a. Anderson .Paak in a wig), and Flea. Set changeovers were peppered with performances by comedienne Yvonne Orji, the Flippers Roller Boogie Palace skaters, and the Debbie Allen Dance Group. The evening was a funhouse mirror for Black LA to see itself, even down to the Inglewood 40+ Double Dutch club. The acts conveyed Halsey’s ethos: Black excellence, Black beauty, LA innovation, being funky with the stank, and her commitment to project bold, honest, and pure gratitude into the world. At the end, as I shuffled my way out among the elated masses, a man said, “That was more than a show—that was a celebration.”

Music and art are the vehicles by which an era expresses itself. DJ Pee .Wee doing a musical roll call of hits throughout the decades while wielding a T-shirt gun is a very good time, but to have .Paak’s musical history lesson lead into routines from a legendary dance group dressed as sphinxes, pyramids, and acrylic sets is to engage a commentary on Black contributions to global culture throughout history. That specific curation is Halsey’s mind at work. It takes a particular type of vision and skill to pull this off without veering into gimmicks, and Halsey created a new world out of something not only familiar, but exalted. “It’s exactly why the Hollywood Bowl exists: for art to come to life in this way,” says the venue’s VP of Presentations, Johanna Rees. “Her extraordinary talent, tenacity, and love for Los Angeles is unparalleled. She wanted to do something at the Hollywood Bowl that’s never been done before—and that’s exactly what she’s doing.” 

A few days before the show, Halsey spoke with me to discuss what this means for her career, the possibilities of connecting visual art and music, and what she’s manifesting for the future. 

emajendat was first used as a title with your show at Serpentine Gallery in London a few years ago. How long has a project like this been brewing in your mind? 

Pre-art school, pre-setting up a studio in my grandma’s backyard, pre-having my own studio. I knew very early on I wanted to contextualize objects and environments and installations. I was interested in presenting them with Black music because that was always the foundation. I grew up in a Black church on the East Side of South Central. We had so many plays and performances, but I couldn’t sing and I’m also not a public speaker. So my aunt tasked me with making objects around the plays that she would present. I loved getting the script two weeks before and going to the backyard to figure out what sort of ephemeral material I could transform into a kitchen or fire station or someone’s car. Later, as I got into sculpture and architecture in community college, I was already in a deep love affair with Parliament-Funkadelic and I knew that whatever I became in life, Black musicians had to be a part of that world.

Fast-forward to when I have a practice and my first solo gallery show in LA, I’d use the gallery context to meet musicians. For all of my afterparties, I’ve hired talent so they would get to know my practice and I would get to know them. I’ve hired Ms. Lauryn Hill a couple times. I had hired Erykah for an award I got. I’ve hired Doechii and Parliament. So when this opportunity came and I already had hundreds of stage renderings, I reached out to Erykah and asked, “Would you ever perform on this?” The design has since changed, but that was less than a year ago and now we’re presenting it together. It’s always been part of my plan, but to do it at the Hollywood Bowl—that has been the most iconic venue since I’ve been alive as an Angeleno. It’s a dream that’s finally happening. I’m very proud. 

Lauren Halsey at sister dreamer sculpture park in South Central Los Angeles / photo by Allen Chen

“I knew very early on I wanted to contextualize objects and environments and installations. I was interested in presenting them with Black music because that was always the foundation.”

You mentioned your love affair with Parliament-Funkadelic, and it comes up a lot in your work. What does the word “funk” mean to you?

I always say what George Clinton said on The Arsenio Hall Show: Once you start to define funk and put language around it, then you lose it, you dilute it. But there’s this thing around my esophagus area where I just feel it. There’s this concept with Parliament that everything is on The One—that’s like when you’ve reached your ascension, and you’re in funk nirvana. I’m in the thick of it right now, which is really great, because I don’t get to be in the thick of it every day. This project has allowed me to feel sincerely liberated and empowered in my making process. All in the spirit of the funk and chasing the funk.

Since you’ve been including musicians throughout your practice for so long, what opportunities do you wish other visual and musical artists would take advantage of? 

This is my proof of concept. Everything’s a proof of concept or a prototype for me. I never speak about my work, objects, or themes in eulogy—they’re never dead. And so I’ll proof-of-concept something until it’s worn out. I see this as being year one. What it could become is super cool. Perhaps there’ll be a year seven, and it’s like Coachella with grounds and different sections. I can imagine collaborating with musicians and artists I love and there being these zones made in homage to the worlds that they come from. Art golf carts drive around the campus as sculptures, you know? That’s the reason none of these objects are thrown away after the fact. I’m gonna continue to grow it while I have the energy, and then invite people in to participate. 

“It’s always been part of my plan, but to do it at the Hollywood Bowl—that has been the most iconic venue since I’ve been alive as an Angeleno. It’s a dream that’s finally happening.”

I hope there’s a year seven and it’s out in the middle of nowhere. 

For as long as I’m alive and I have energy, there will be a new presentation. Maybe year five is a parade. Maybe it’s a fleet of art trucks. It can shape-shift. I feel agnostic about it. What I feel firm about is that I need to present objects with a certain rigor and on a certain scale with music every year and have fun doing it. Maybe I’m manifesting right now. Perhaps in year three or four of Ms. Lauryn Hill’s Diaspora Calling! festival, my contribution will be an art stage. 

Constraint can breed creativity. If you have only one instance and put your minds together, what happens?

Exactly. People keep asking me what emajendat is—it’s exactly that. What happens when you conflate these minds, these positions, these aesthetics in one night for three hours? What will that summon? Then, what will that summon for the participants and their own imaginings? What’s exciting about that is I have no clue. I’ve come to know so much in my practice, we have it dialed in. This? Oh, it’s new. I love it. 

Lauren Halsey, emajendat, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South / photo by Hugo Glendinning (courtesy Serpentine)

“When I think about presenting the culture at this scale, I’m really excited about what that’s gonna do for the minds of people who need to be affirmed. What it means for youth to be represented at that scale in iconic institutions.”

Lauren Halsey, emajendat, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South / photo by Hugo Glendinning (courtesy Serpentine)

I’ve always thought of your work as a combination choose-your-own-adventure and a history book for Black Los Angeles. What opportunities for highlighting this culture are showing up for you in these types of collaborations?

I’m always thinking, “How does this tie into this other idea that I wanna do?” So even the Serpentine show you mentioned, some of the cladding was prototyping what I knew I wanted to sheath objects and pronounce moments, people, and places in the context of Blackness and Black LA at a very large superscale: 10- or 12-feet tall sculptures in our image dispersed around a campus. When I think about presenting the culture at this scale, I’m really excited about what that’s gonna do for the minds of people who need to be affirmed. What it means for youth to be represented at that scale in iconic institutions. I also hope in the future I’ll be able to attract local organizations and local artists to get involved and join me in the telling. The idea is that people have a poetic response that leads to a tangible year two where I can recycle resources back to hyperlocal context to pull it off. 

Just planting the seeds now and letting it grow?

It will grow. That’s the way I’ve run my community center. Year one of the community center was just me and my friends lugging boxes at the Nickerson [Gardens] or at the Watts Coffee House. It was literally me, Flea, and his wife, Melody Ehsani, in my studio. Then, year two, more people came. I just have to prove I can do it, but I know what I need. FL