Story & Lesson Highlights with L Akinyi of Inland Empire

We recently had the chance to connect with L Akinyi and have shared our conversation below.

L, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: Who are you learning from right now?
For the past four months I’ve been learning so much about mutual aid and how different folks define, co-create and sustain community at this time. I’m still getting clear on what those foundations feel like to me, and observing how different groups form their agreements around resources, labor, care and accessibility.

As an artist who has been navigating housing, physical and mental health challenges, I’ve been so fortunate to have some of my peers in the IE offer support in ways that I didn’t even know to ask for. Aunty Hill, Solstice Theatre IE, Sandalwood Farm & Sanctuary have been a lifeline for me since the end of summer. It’s been very revealing to me how artists and culture bearers in the IE can value themselves and be valued simply for their humanity. I’ve witnessed, participate in and benefit from what still seems to be an underground solidarity economy where every individual is an asset and worthy of having their needs met through some collective effort.

While Im being stretched relationally, I’m also learning to engage with creative spirit in ways that don’t need public witness or validation.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m an interdisciplinary artist playing across mediums to express my internal world. Interdisciplinary for me means freedom and permission to use whatever is immediately available to me to create, whether it is visual art, poetry, film or sound. While i have some “formal” training, I am more intuitively guided and enjoy the magic that happens when i don’t know what exactly it is i’m doing.

I moved to Riverside in 2015 and started showing in the IE around 2017? at Urge Palette before the addition of Painsugar Gallery and continued making art while working as a preschool teacher for a few years. I’ve spent the last 5 years getting to know the creative community in the IE (primarily San Bernardino), collaborating, experimenting and exhibiting in multiple galleries/museums including the Garcia Center, Creative Grounds, Cheech Marin Center and Ontario Museum.

I like to think that everyone is an artist and after being in a supportive role for various creative projects in and beyond San Bernardino, guiding different workshops and engaging in direct peer support, I am currently working that cheerleader muscle as a community teaching artist to elementary school students.

My favorite projects either draw directly from nature or involve natural materials and have an invocative quality to them. Like they are living objects themselves. I’ve been most succesful at this through mask-making, sculpture work and a brief fling with cinepoetry. My work is informed by radical attentiveness (or hypervigilance), self-reflection, african and other indigenous traditional crafts, oral traditions, mythology & storytelling and the curiosity of a shy, Kenyan kid growing up in a loud, confusing world.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I recently remembered a pure moment from childhood- I’m twirling in a pink skirt, probably singing. I have another vivid memory of watching the rainbow sheen of oil spilled from my dad’s car. I know i smelled like outside. I liked to run too.

I think I was expressive in my own ways. Drawing, singing, dancing, collecting ambient sounds on an old tape recorder… I lived in my own world but I also played outside with my siblings and friends. We made earth kitchens and “cooked” in recycled cans over small twig fires. We got lost in fields behind our homes and schools. It was simple, sunny and free.

If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
can i play with you?

Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Is the public version of you the real you?
I am all versions of me. I shift according to my needs and experiences of my environment. If you’re asking if i have an intimate (deep knowing) relationship with a “public”, then no 😅

Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. If you laid down your name, role, and possessions—what would remain?
my soul. and the wisdom from my life experiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/laconicandecho
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@_l.akinyi?si=ZnPC3YSIiYhw9ye7

Image Credits
Artist photo with sculpture- Taken by Kristen Aguas in Rancho Cucamonga. 2024.