We may think of images and language as two separate things, but they’re not. They’re bound together in a million complicated ways, and it’s impossible to pull them apart. In a city like Los Angeles, we’re constantly surrounded by a swirl of words mutating into images (think the Hollywood sign, or a street artist spraypainting their name in neon colors) and images with easily recognizable meanings (a green cross, or a peace symbol).

In Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in LA, a series of murals on display at the Central Library, the artist collective Tlacolulokos takes on the endlessly complex relationship between words and images, and at the same time they explore the equally complex cultural landscape of indigenous people who have migrated to Los Angeles.

This newly written visual history is meant to be a response to earlier versions of history, specifically the series of murals by Dean Cornwell that decorates the Central Library’s rotunda. Cornwell’s images tell the story that the City’s leadership wanted to hear back in 1933, the discovery of the New World, the spread of Christianity, the march of Civilization. Of course, the indigenous people represented in those murals were generally down on their knees, waiting for salvation.

One of the murals painted by Dean Cornwell for the Library in 1933

There’s no point in me trying to write about these murals, because they speak so eloquently themselves. I’ll let the images do the talking. Just a word about the way they’re organized. The murals are conceived as three sets of diptychs, and the title for each set is given in Zapotec, the language of the indigenous people of Oaxaca.

Gal rabenee ladxuu/For the Pride of Your Hometown

Ra galumbanuu xhten guccran nii/The Way of the Elders

Ne guitenala’dxinu ca binni ma cusia’ndanu/And in Memory of the Forgotten

Gal rabenee ladxuu/For the Pride of Your Hometown

Gal rabenee ladxuu/For the Pride of Your Hometown (detail)

Gal rabenee ladxuu/For the Pride of Your Hometown

Ra galumbanuu xhten guccran nii/The Way of the Elders

Ra galumbanuu xhten guccran nii/The Way of the Elders (detail)

Ra galumbanuu xhten guccran nii/The Way of the Elders

Ne guitenala’dxinu ca binni ma cusia’ndanu/And in Memory of the Forgotten

Ne guitenala’dxinu ca binni ma cusia’ndanu/And in Memory of the Forgotten

The exhibition, a joint effort by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Public Library, is part of Pacific Standard Time. Of course, these photos don’t do the murals justice. Really you should just head on down to the Central Library and see them for yourselves.

Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in LA