In January, an immersive installation at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County – Sacrifice Zone: Los Angeles – addressed some of the city’s most pressing environmental justice issues.
Oil wells, battery recycling plants, and other industrial sites have caused environmental degradation that carry serious health implications for residents. These challenges tend to fall most heavily on lower-income neighborhoods and communities of color, where toxins and contaminants are present at higher concentrations, according to a 2023 report. These areas are named “sacrifice zones.”
The installation, co-created by Michael Bodie, a filmmaker and USC professor, and Paula Cizmar, a playwright and USC professor, combined art, performance, informative writing and accounts from community members to tell the story of life in the sacrifice zone. The creative team worked with local partners like activist Hugo Garcia, People Not Pozos, which is Spanish for “people not oil wells,” and Esperanza Community Housing.
“It’s not necessarily our story to tell, right? So, the partnerships were really key,” Bodie said, “We saw ourselves more as kind of providing the space for the narratives to emerge. The immersive experience not only featured informational displays but also video interviews and an animated 3D topographical map of Los Angeles. Upon entering the space, visitors were “dropped” into the sacrifice zone.
“Providing an immersive experience is something that’s different than what we can get at home, than what we can get while we’re looking at our phone in every other space,” Bodie said. Video components featured interviews with Angelenos and environmental advocates who shared their stories and health challenges. The installation merged art, science and social justice.
The production designer, Sibyl Wickersheimer, said she wanted visitors to have the impression of being “a fly on the wall and witnessing this family’s life within the sacrifice zone.”
At the center of the room stood an abstract house. The acrid scent of sulfur infused with fruity perfume pervaded the space, mimicking the smells produced by oil refineries. Actors brought the story to life by portraying a family faced with living in heavily polluted neighborhoods.
The theater can help viewers “understand the story of somebody first hand like you’re reading a book or getting the depth of what it might mean to live in a place rather than just the information posted on a wall,” Wickersheimer said.
The installation highlighted common health outcomes from living among environmental contaminants, including frequent nosebleeds, asthma, and increased school absences for impacted youth.
Ed Avol, a professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine provided insight into the state of air pollution in Los Angeles. “The air has dramatically improved here. That said, it is important to note that we are still in violation of federal air standards here in the basin,” Avol said. “The impacts of air pollution are really almost endless in terms of thinking about our bodies’ effects.”
Pollution from oil drilling and freeway exhaust were the primary focus of the installation. Active and abandoned oil wells can be found in backyards, near schools, and in LA neighborhoods.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as making a phone call or sending an email to our elected representative to say–we want this to change,” Bodie said.
Additionally, some communities are close to major freeways like the I-710. Nicknamed the “diesel death zone,” residents of such neighborhoods are more likely to experience adverse health effects impacting “the whole life spectrum,” said Avol. These health impacts are “disproportionately imposed upon people of color or people of lower socioeconomic means.”
According to Avol, the impacts often extend beyond respiratory and cardiovascular function. Air pollution can also indirectly contribute to other health consequences including dementia, Alzheimer’s, obesity and diabetes.
The installation highlighted local advocacy groups and community partners working to create safer and healthier neighborhoods. Bodie noted that this issue is important for everybody because “there are no real boundaries” to the impacts of industrial pollution.
As L.A. adopts new initiatives to promote sustainable initiatives and renewable energy, significant work still needs to be done to protect the city’s most vulnerable residents from pollution.