Field Notes: Night at the Library: Remixing the Rotunda at the Los Angeles Public Library
Photo Credit: Library Foundation of Los Angeles
The Rotunda and the Civic Imagination
For NOMMO’s second engagement with the Los Angeles Public Library and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, we were commissioned to curate an activation of the Central Library’s historic rotunda as part of the Centennial celebration, Night at the Library 2026.
The rotunda is one of the Library’s most iconic architectural spaces. Encircled by murals depicting the origins of Los Angeles, the room reflects a civic narrative centered on conquest, religion, and westward expansion. Conquistadors, missionaries, and colonial imagery dominate the city's visual landscape, shaping a particular vision of its history and civic imagination.
But like many civic monuments, the mural also reveals its omissions.
Absent from the space are the expansive contributions of Black Angelenos and African Americans to the cultural, spiritual, and social history of Los Angeles and the American West.
Rather than treating that absence as a limitation, NOMMO approached it as a possibility. Using our Remix the Archive methodology, we began considering how the rotunda itself could be reinterpreted through sound, performance, and collective memory. What would it mean not simply to activate the archive, but to remix the civic narrative embedded within the architecture itself?
Black Sound as Living Archive
In reflecting on this activation, NOMMO considered the relationship between the sacred and the civic. What happens when Black music fills the spaces history tried to leave silent?
To answer that question, NOMMO invited the historic Gospel Music Workshop of America — Los Angeles Chapter, led by Calvin B. Rhone, to transform the rotunda through gospel music, memory, and collective praise.
The activation also coincided with the approaching 60th anniversary of the founding of the Gospel Music Workshop of America by gospel pioneer James Cleveland. Featuring more than 20 singers, including several vocalists who performed alongside Aretha Franklin during the recording of Amazing Grace in the 1970s, the performance brought generations of Black musical history into direct conversation with one of Los Angeles’ most recognizable civic spaces.
The evening became more than a performance. It marked a reoccupation of civic space through Black sound. A choir stood beneath murals that never imagined their presence there, transforming the rotunda into a living sonic archive that echoed throughout the Library.
What emerged was an intergenerational gathering centered on spirituality, resilience, memory, and possibility. For one evening, the Library did not simply hold history.
It sang back.
Narrative Architecture and Public Memory
Over 3,000 Angelenos moved through the activation during Night at the Library, witnessing how music, architecture, and public memory can converge within institutional space.
The performance highlighted how Black spirituality and gospel music continue to function as cultural infrastructure, carrying histories, emotions, and communal memory across generations while introducing many audiences to traditions of Black sacred music they may rarely encounter within civic institutions.
For NOMMO, the activation reflected the broader possibilities of narrative architecture and cultural strategy. By bringing gospel music into the rotunda, NOMMO sought to create an encounter between archive and activation, sacred expression and civic architecture, absence and presence.
Rather than erasing the existing mural, the performance placed Black cultural memory into active dialogue with it. Through sound, performance, and collective experience, the activation illuminated the histories often omitted from civic narratives while demonstrating how institutions can create space for new interpretations of public memory.
This is what NOMMO means when we say:
Remix the Archive.
Field Notes: Excavating Black Mobility and Memory at the Los Angeles Public Library
This year, NOMMO has established a new partnership with the Los Angeles Public Library and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles as part of the Centennial celebration of the Central Library in Downtown Los Angeles.
Through this collaboration, NOMMO is utilizing the Library’s collections to host a series of public programs, conversations, and cultural events. These initiatives aim to explore how archives can be transformed into contemporary tools for civic engagement, focusing on African American art, history, and culture.
Rather than viewing the archive solely as a means of preservation, these programs examine how collections can serve as points of public access, facilitate historical interpretation, and promote community dialogue, particularly in relation to Black Los Angeles.
The first of these events featured cultural documentarian and author Candacy Taylor, who presented her work on the Overground Railroad and the history of the Negro Motorist Green Book.
Diving into the Archive: The Green Book Collection
Ahead of the public program, Candacy Taylor welcomed Tyree Boyd-Pates, the founder of NOMMO, into the Los Angeles Public Library’s Green Book collection, one of the largest and best-preserved collections of its kind in the world.
Together, we explored materials related to Black travel, mobility, and leisure during the era of segregation. These materials included Green Books, travel ephemera, maps, and archival documents that reveal the infrastructure Black Americans built to navigate exclusion across the United States.
The archive provided insight into how mobility served as both a possibility and a restriction. While the Green Book is often discussed as a travel guide, the items in the collection demonstrate how it also functioned as a network of care, connecting Black travelers to businesses, neighborhoods, and spaces where their safety and dignity could be preserved.
This encounter with the archive also informed a small exhibition installation curated for the evening’s public program, translating elements of the special collections into an accessible experience for those attending the conversation.
Bringing the Green Book to the People
Later that week, as part of the Library’s Centennial ALOUD programming, Candacy Taylor and Tyree Boyd-Pates participated in a public discussion about the legacy of the Green Book and Black mobility in Los Angeles.
Throughout the conversation, Taylor linked the history of the Green Book to larger questions of movement, access, and belonging, prompting the audience to reflect on how these issues continue to influence contemporary life. The program also emphasized the significance of civic archives in preserving histories that are often overlooked in broader public narratives.
Cultural Strategy and the Civic Archive
The partnership between NOMMO, the Los Angeles Public Library, and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles highlights a growing interest in how civic institutions can engage audiences through archives, storytelling, and public programming, particularly focusing on African American art, history, and culture.
Libraries currently play a unique role in Los Angeles' cultural landscape. They not only preserve historical collections but also serve as public spaces that connect audiences across neighborhoods, generations, and communities.
Programs like the conversation with Candacy Taylor illustrate how archival materials can extend beyond mere preservation, becoming tools for public engagement and cultural reflection.
For NOMMO, this endeavor forms part of a broader initiative to view archives not just as static repositories but as dynamic cultural resources that can influence how communities understand history, memory, and civic life in the present.
As the Centennial programming continues, these Field Notes will document additional encounters, exhibitions, and conversations arising from this evolving partnership with the Los Angeles Public Library.