Rather than creating art just for galleries and museums, artist Judy Baca has made her home city her canvas, turning walls and riverbanks into works of art. Baca transforms these public spaces into giant, colorful murals inspired by her Chicana heritage and home city of Los Angeles, California.

Baca came of age in Los Angeles amid the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, also known as the Mexican-American civil rights movement. As a result, her artwork frequently blends history, culture, and activism for social change.

Beginning in 1974, Baca undertook what is now considered to be one of the biggest community mural projects in the world: the Great Wall of Los Angeles. This public mural is currently half a mile long (nearly 1 kilometer) and runs along the concrete banks of a river. 

The mural depicts scenes stretching back thousands of years to prehistoric California and leading up to trailblazing Olympic athletes of the mid-20th century. The heroes of this visual story are predominantly civil rights leaders and groups, along with individuals who broke through barriers to equality. Some historical figures highlighted in the mural include Mary Ellen Pleasant, the first Black self-made millionaire, and Big Mama Thorton, a musician who influenced the birth of rock and roll. 

“The story I wanted to tell was the story that wasn’t recorded in history books: the history of people of color, the history of women, of Indigenous people,” said Baca in a PBS News Hour interview. “[I wanted] to look at what was missing from the story of America…and teach it to the young people who would begin to learn about each other.”

To paint the mural, Baca employed hundreds of people from the local community. Baca says that creating public art alongside the people who live in those places makes them “sites of public memory.” 

Baca’s public art program, called the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), continues working on the Great Wall and other public art projects. In her lifetime Baca has been involved in the creation of hundreds of murals, making monuments out of places and figures that have frequently been overlooked.

“Essentially the thread was always looking at the conditions of my community and the people I loved and worked with and cared about and telling their stories,” said Baca. “I really believe that art has amazing [abilities] to be transformative.”