Welcome to LA2026!
LA2026 brings together members of the public and humanities scholars for eighteen conversations about museum and cultural exhibitions at six partnering institutions in the Los Angeles region, including the Autry Museum of the American West, The Huntington, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes / El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and USC Libraries. Each exhibition frames conversations about the anniversary of 1776 from the perspective of California and the West. Each discussion will focus on specific items from one of the partner exhibitions, encouraging public discussions about national identities, relationships between regional and national narratives, participating in democracy, and human relationships to the land.
The EMSI LA2026 Project has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The LA2026 logo marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with a Southern California twist. It invites us into conversation about Los Angeles’s relationship to national stories. The iconography displays two symbols of the region’s landscape, which have captured our cultural imaginations for generations. The turquoise wave gestures to the motion of LA’s coastline, with the six lines representing EMSI’s six LA2026 partners. The orange-gold poppy — California’s state flower —honors the native wildflower as an enduring part LA’s natural environment.
The USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute (EMSI) explores the history, literature, art, and science of the Early Modern period (c. 1450-1850). The institute’s range is global – instead of focusing on a particular region, EMSI aims to advance knowledge of the diverse societies in and around the Atlantic and Pacific basins. Researchers nourish diverse perspectives, advance interdisciplinary perspectives, and share discoveries about the Early Modern period with the goal of informing the ways we approach problems today as well as keeping us in touch with the sources of our common humanity. Visit the EMSI website to learn more.
Banner Image: “Poppies at The Huntington” by Amy M Braden.