Velaslavasay Panorama
The Velaslavasay Panorama is an exhibition hall, theatre and gardens in Los Angeles, California, featuring the only painted, 360-degree panorama created in the United States since the nineteenth century.[1][2] The Velaslavasay Panorama was originally established by artist Sara Velas in 2000 at the Tswuun-Tswuun Rotunda, which had formerly housed the Chu Chu Chinese Restaurant. In 2004, its original venue threatened with demolition, the panorama moved to its present location at the Union Theatre in Historical West Adams.[3]
To date, the Velaslavasay Panorama has hosted two 360-degree panoramic paintings. The first, Panorama of the Valley of the Smokes, depicted the Los Angeles area as it would have appeared in 1792, the year that Robert Barker's very first panorama was unveiled; it was displayed at the Tswuun-Tswuun rotunda from 2001 to 2004. The second, Effulgence of the North, depicting scenes of the Arctic from the era of its nineteenth-century exploration, debuted at the new Union Theatre location in July 2007, and remains on display. The venue has also hosted moving panoramas, among them the Grand Moving Mirror of California, which debuted in 2010, and remains on static display in their theatre area.[4]
In 2014, the Velaslavasay Panorama added a new attraction, the Nova Tuskhut, replicating the interior of a trading post in the Arctic regions, and featuring a miniature dioramic view through its window. Its debut was accompanied by a new exhibit of materials relating to the appearance of Inuit people in Hollywood films from the silent era to the 1940s, and featuring images and memorabilia relating to early Inuit film star Nancy Columbia. The event was also marked by a joint lecture, "Before Nanook," by two prominent Arctic historians, Kenn Harper and Russell Potter, as well as a series of movies with polar themes, entitled Mush: To The Movies.[5] In 2014, Artistic Director & Founder of the Velaslavasay Panorama Sara Velas was elected President of the International Panorama Council.
Since 2012, the Velaslavasay Panorama has been working on Shengjing Panorama 《盛京全景图》, the first-ever China-US collaborative panorama depicting the city of Shenyang from the years 1910 to 1930. Painted by Chinese panorama masters 李武 Li Wu, 晏阳 Yan Yang, and 周福先 Zhou Fuxian, Shengjing Panorama depicts an urban Chinese landscape during an era of great technological change, global exchange, and diversity in architecture, religions, and culture.[6]
References
- ^ "Panoramic Inquiries". Museum Futures. 2016-06-25. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
- ^ Potter, Russell, Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818–1875 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007) (ISBN 0295986808), p. 210
- ^ "How to make the city shine / What would finally civilize L.A.?; Feed – and fund – the 'ferals'", Los Angeles Times, Dec. 26, 2007 p. A31
- ^ Huhtamo, Erkki, Illusions in Motion: Media Archaeology of the Moving Panorama and Related Spectacles (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013) (ISBN 9780262018517) , p. 14
- ^ "Mush! to the Movies: a Polar Film Club - Nanook of the North and The Idea of North - LA Filmforum". Retrieved 2018-03-29.
- ^ "Shengjing Panorama | Velaslavasay Panorama". panoramaonview.org. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
5. Pinkus, Karen. "Hollywood Panorama." Places. A Forum of Environmental DesignVol. 4, December 2006. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/89w497p3
External links
- Velaslavasay Panorama: Panorama exhibition hall in old silent theater with a beautiful backyard garden, Atlas Obscura
- Exploring The Century-Old University Park Theater That's Revived The Pre-Film Art Of Panoramas, Los Angeles Curbed, January 14, 2014.
- Velaslavasay Panorama, Velaslavasay Panorama website