Freedom of Expression National Monument: Artists

Laurie Hawkinson is a partner of Smith-Miller + Hawkinson Architects - a New York City-based architecture and urban planning firm founded in 1983. Ms. Hawkinson's work derives from an ongoing investigation into the general culture of architecture - its history, as well as, its complex and changing relationship to society and contemporary ideas. The firm has conceived public and private projects across the United States, ranging from institutional commissions and parks to corporate buildings, housing, public transportation terminals, theaters and museums. Recent and current projects include the $62 million expansion of Corning Glass, a planning study for LMDC entitled “Strategic Open Space: Public Realm Improvement Strategy for Lower Manhattan”, The Museum of Women’s History in Battery Park, the Wall Street Ferry Terminal at Pier 11, and an outdoor cinema and amphitheater at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Her team was a finalist for the NYC 2012 Olympic Village, and her firm will exhibit in La Biennale di Architecttura di Venezia in Italy, in September 2004.

John Malpede founded the Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD), a theater comprised of homeless people. "Olympic Update: Homelessness in Los Angeles", was developed and performed for the Freedom of Expression National Monument in 1984, and marked the beginning of his involvement with poverty issues. As a director and performer he has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Dance Theater Workshop's Bessie Creation Award, the San Francisco Art Institute's Adeline Kent Award, and a LA Theater Alliance Ovation Award. Current projects include direction of "RFKinEKY" a site specific performance that retraces the 200-mile route of Robert Kennedy’s 1968 investigation of poverty in Appalachia; performing the role of Antonin Artaud in Peter Sellars’ production of “An End to the Judgement of God,” and direction of LAPD's "Agents & Assets".

Erika Rothenberg is a visual artist whose work takes many forms, from paintings and drawings to museum installations to large-scale public sculpture. She has been exhibited at museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Her newest public artwork, “The Road to Hollywood,” was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as “an exceptional work of public art…it ranks among the best public art projects in L.A.” Rothenberg lives in Los Angeles and is represented by Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago and Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Los Angeles, where in 2005 she will exhibit a new series about cemeteries and memorialization.

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