Lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles' Venice Beach neighborhood inspires activism and art

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A Los Angeles gallery installation offers a unique art-meets-data look at the eviction crisis in the Venice Beach neighborhood

LOS ANGELES — As more and more of her friends and neighbors found themselves priced out of rental units in Venice Beach, Judy Branfman began photographing the dozens of houses, bungalows and apartments being sold, renovated and then relisted at double or triple the cost.

Branfman started with only the vague idea that she should be documenting the growing problem of evictions and housing unaffordability in her beloved west Los Angeles neighborhood. The writer and activist lamented that Venice, where tourists flock to the famous boardwalk and Muscle Beach, has been slowly shedding its historically bohemian vibe and becoming another enclave for the wealthy.

Word spread about her photo project and earlier this year Branfman started hosting community meetings where residents could share their experiences with evictions that forced them to move out of the area and, in some cases, into homelessness. Some people recited poems. Others expressed themselves through paintings. And the more academically-minded among them began compiling housing and eviction statistics.

Branfman's initial notion to just shoot a few photos has culminated in an unlikely but ambitious art-meets-data exhibit titled “Where Has All The (affordable) Housing Gone?” It's on display through Saturday at Venice's venerable Beyond Baroque gallery, a hub for cultural events and activism dating back to the late 1960s.

“The idea was to illustrate the problem, to show what we've lost. You know, make it visual so people would walk in and be a little shocked, and want to do something about it,” Branfman said at the gallery this week.

Venice