The third collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)’s ongoing Augmented Reality Monumental Perspectives series has been unveiled to the public, featuring works of five artists that offer insights into the histories of their own unique pockets of LA’s patchwork mosaic of communities.

The series’ final trove includes Victoria Fu, Yassi Mazandi, Rashaad Newsome, Rubén Ortiz Torres, and Alison Saar. Each is accessible through Snapchat’s Lens Explorer tab. The initiative is being funded as part of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s larger $250 million The Monuments Project project. LACMA President Michael Govan says each work “challenges us to examine the individual and communal legacies we are leaving today and how we are shaping the future of Los Angeles.”

Fu will offer a virtual take on a subject, the city’s 1871 Chinese Massacre, which has already spurred one of the most important public memorial designs in the country with this spring’s announcement of a new commission from local artists Artist Sze Tsung and Nicolás Leong and writer Judy Chui-Hua Chung. Other topics like climate displacement, colonialization, and the controversial theft of several bronzes depicting important figures from Mexican history in Lincoln Park are also featured. The works can be activated using a QR code at sites near the park, at LACMA, Santa Monica Beach, Exposition Park, and the Los Angeles State Historic Park, respectively.

Govan added that they help to “realize new community touchstones through the virtual space.” The series debuted in April of 2021 and has featured creative new monument proposals by Mercedes Dorame, I.R.Bach, Glenn Kaino, Rubén Ochoa, Judy Baca, Sandra de la Loza, Kang Seung Lee, and Ada Pinkston.

The museum also recently celebrated progress on its Peter Zumthor-designed new main building on Wilshire Boulevard. 

Additional explorations of the Monumental Perspectives series can be made by visiting lacma.org/monumental.