There’s a bold power in Indigenous artists taking up space in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, especially when that space has historically excluded us. The Broad’s new Sunset Exhibitions series is a beautiful and long-overdue gesture toward celebrating Indigenous cultures through live dance, song, and storytelling. However, it raises a critical question: Where are the Tongva?
Tovangaar, the original name for what we now call the LA Basin, is the ancestral homeland of the Tongva people. So when a major institution like The Broad publicly names Tovangaar and centers Indigenous performance, it carries a responsibility not just to acknowledge the land, but to include and uplift the original stewards of it. And in the first installment of the Sunset Exhibitions, that presence is conspicuously absent.
Now, we do see a powerful and talented lineup led by Candido Cornejo Jr. (Tlaxcalan, Nahua), with Mr. Glen Begay (Diné) and the BearSpring Singers, alongside twenty intertribal dancers performing ten distinct traditional dances from across Native nations. Eric Hernandez (Lumbee), a World Champion hoop dancer, will be giving what is guaranteed to be a stunning, story-rich performance. Their presence is beautiful, meaningful, and worth celebrating. But that celebration becomes complicated when the local Native community is overlooked, especially in a city that so often reduces the Tongva people to a land acknowledgment and then moves on. Visibility without inclusion is just another form of erasure.
That said, Sunset Exhibitions still has time to correct course. The opportunity is wide open to ensure that future installments center Tongva voices and leadership, not as a symbolic gesture, but as an act of kinship, allyship, accountability, and respect.
It’s no secret that L.A. has the largest and most diverse Native population in the United States. But we have to remember that even though we call this home, we are still guests and we are not interchangeable. And when we gather on land that still belongs to the Tongva people, we must ask: Are we honoring the land, or just performing around it?
Still, The Broad is making space for something that could shift how this city views Indigenous art and cultures, not as relics, but as active, ongoing expressions of survival, joy, and future-building.
Let this be a beginning, not a box checked. There’s real hope that upcoming installments of Sunset Exhibitions will not only continue to showcase the diversity of L.A.’s Indigenous population but will also begin where all things in LA should: with the Tongva people.
If you’re showing up for Indigenous people, show up fully by asking who is missing and why, and by making room for them in the next breath.
General admission to The Broad is always free, and tickets to Sunset Exhibitions can be reserved at thebroad.org.
And while you’re there, be sure to check out the Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me exhibition. Every Thursday between 5 and 8 pm, Gibson’s exhibition is also free to visit. Tickets must be reserved in advance.
