We are pleased to announce our 2025 cohort of Cultural Trailblazers. This grant promotes artists who are recognized as regional innovators. DCAa’s mission is to strengthen the quality of life in the City of Los Angeles by stimulating and supporting arts leaders. These peer-selected artists have been chosen for their contribution to the community and caliber of their work.
The 2025 DCA Cultural Trailblazers include: Casey Anderson, Philip Chang, Shauna Davis, Peter Holzhauer, Pearl C. Hsiung, Gabrielle Jennings, Aaron “Abstract Rude” Pointer, David Schafer, Katie Shapiro, and Pam Ward.
Casey Anderson
Casey Anderson is an artist working with sound in a number of media, including composition, improvisation, electronic music, saxophone, text, and installations. Performances, exhibitions, and residencies include MOCA – Los Angeles (CA), ISSUE Project Room (NY), STEIM (NL), Atlantic Center for the Arts (FL), Mass MOCA (MA), The Walker Art Center (MN), and The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA (CA). He co-founded, and co-edited (with John P. Hastings and Scott Cazan), the Experimental Music Yearbook, and owns and operates a wave press. He currently lives in Los Angeles, California and teaches at KAOS Network and ArtCenter College of Design.
INSTAGRAM: @fakecaseyanderson
Phil Chang
Phil Chang is an artist and educator living in Los Angeles. His work has recently been presented in solo exhibitions at the Penumbra Foundation, New York, The Fulcrum Press, Los Angeles, and at M+B Gallery, Los Angeles. His works are held in the public collections of the Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, among other institutions. He is an associate professor in the Department of Art & Art History at
California State University, Bakersfield and a faculty member of the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.
INSTAGRAM: @philchang_
Shauna Davis
Originally from South Florida, Shauna Davis is a creator, dancer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Encompassing themes of legacy, reclamation and popular culture, Shauna’s work consists of cinematic and storied dance experiences influenced by history and the fantasy of the future. She was a 2020-2021 Resident Artist with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, during which she created her debut short film BLACK.ECO, an Afrofuturist dance film that went on to several festivals and was awarded a four month video billboard on the City of West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. Shauna has presented work at the Ace Hotel Palm Springs, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Opera Omaha, LA Opera, and The MOCA Geffen, among others. Through movement and storytelling, As a dancer, she has worked with artists such as The Weeknd, Olivia Rodrigo, Kanye West, & Shawn Mendes and has performed with No)One. Art House, LA Opera, Long Beach Opera and LA Chamber Orchestra, most recently touring with Jhené Aiko & Melanie Martinez throughout 2024. She is a graduate of New World School of the Arts and Southern Methodist University, Meadows School of the Arts.
WEBSITE: shaunadavis.org
INSTAGRAM: @shaunaydavis
Peter Holzhauer
Peter Holzhauer grew up in coastal Maine and has lived and worked in Los Angeles since 2005. He studied at UCLA and teaches photography at the University of Southern California and Pasadena City College. See more of Peter’s work at peterholzhauer.com.
WEBSITE: peterholzhauer.com
INSTAGRAM: @peter_holzhauer
Pearl C. Hsiung
Pearl C. Hsiung is an artist based in Los Angeles whose paintings, videos, and installations summon landscapes to question human-nature dualisms and explore the speculative space of our physical, energetic, and temporal entanglement. She is an Assistant Professor in the School of Art at California State University Long Beach. Hsiung’s large-scale, tile-mosaic mural, High Prismatic, commissioned by LA Metro, can be viewed at the Grand Av Arts/Bunker Hills station in downtown Los Angeles.
Artist portrait credit: LA Metro
WEBSITE: pearlchsiung.com
INSTAGRAM: @prlhsiung
Gabrielle Jennings
Katie Shapiro (1983) received an MFA from the University of California, Irvine and a BFA in Photography from CalArts. Her practice is centered on the ineffable, and visualizing things that cannot be seen. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, Klompching Gallery, New York, The Armory Center, Pasadena, Christopher Grimes, Santa Monica, Joan, Los Angeles and Aperture Gallery, New York. Her work has received coverage in Artforum, the Los Angeles Times, and New York Magazine and is housed in private collections as well as in the permanent collections at the Huntington Library, the California Museum of Photography at Riverside and the Amon Carter Library. She’s been an artist in residence at the Banff Centre in Canada and at Bullseye Glass in Pasadena. Shapiro lives and works in Los Angeles. as the Barbican Centre, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Haus der elektronischen Kunste, Seoul Museum of Art, Chronus Art Center, SIGGRAPH, Onassis Cultural Center, IDFA DocLab, Science Gallery Dublin, and the Japan Media Arts Festival.
WEBSITE: gabriellejennings.com
INSTAGRAM: @gjennings.studio
Aaron “Abstract Rude” Pointer
Aaron “Abstract Rude” Pointer is a West Coast veteran of independent and underground hip hop and is one of ten artists selected as a 2025 DCA Cultural Trailblazers. He like many other rap artists in the Los Angeles scene got his start at the Goodlife Cafe, and starred in the Ava Duvernay directed docu-film, THIS IS THE LIFE. Abstract Rude (along with tour mate, UK legend DJ Vadim) also has a current song “Soundcatchers” used in Duvernay’s “Colin In Black & White” Netflix series. Recently, he was featured in and received Creative Consultant credit in the documentary series HIP HOP EVOLUTION (season 3 episode 3) now streaming on Netflix.
Rude’s distinct voice and vast catalog has kept him working in the music business since the mid 90s. He has released groundbreaking albums such as Project Blowed, South Central Thynk Taynk, Mood Pieces, Who Framed The A-Team?, P.a.i.n.t, Haiku De Tat & Coup De Theatre. As frontman of his original group Abstract Tribe Unique (ATU: w/Zulu Butterfly, Ebony Prince, Irie Lion King, DJ Fat Jack & DJ Drez), collaborator with Freestyle Fellowship members Aceyalone & Myka 9, and as a consistently touring solo artist, Abstract Rude has endeared himself to fans worldwide.
2025 for Ab Rude will include: Re-Education Music Project by The Suitors ft. Abstract Rude & Various Artists, 25th Anniversary Edition of South Central Thynk Taynk by Abstract Tribe Unique (mixed and remastered reissue) on Rhymesayers, Notes From The Sanho by Abstract Rude & Kenny Segal.
INSTAGRAM: @abbeyrizzle
David Schafer
David Schafer was born in Kansas City, MO in 1955 and raised in a developing suburb in the 1970’s. Schafer’s practice includes sculpture, sound, and installation. Influenced by urban planning, consumer, and capitalist systems, he is interested in the structures of the built environment and the market forces that shape them.
Schafer has performed at Human Resources, David Kordansky, Samuel Freeman, LACE; LA, CA. The Whitney Museum, Printed Matter; NYC, The Invisible Dog, Roulette; Brooklyn, NY., Mildreds Lane; Scranton, PA. His has been included in radio programs for California State University Broadcasting; Northridge, CA., The Transmission Arts and John Cage Trust; NY., WMFU radio; East Orange, New Jersey, RadioPhrenia; Glasgow, Scotland., Stress FM; Lisbon; Portugal, websynradio; Paris, France, Radio Village; Marseille, France, United Nations Radio Network; Berlin, Germany. Schafer is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Center for Cultural Innovation, Visions and Voices Arts Initiative; Los Angeles, CA., National Endowment for the Arts, Artist in Residence, Public Art Fund; NYC., and Sculpture Chicago; Chicago, ILL.
WEBSITE: davidschafer.org
INSTAGRAM: @davidkschafer
Katie Shapiro
Katie Shapiro (1983) received an MFA from the University of California, Irvine and a BFA in Photography from CalArts. Her practice is centered on the ineffable, and visualizing things that cannot be seen. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, Klompching Gallery, New York, The Armory Center, Pasadena, Christopher Grimes, Santa Monica, Joan, Los Angeles and Aperture Gallery, New York. Her work has received coverage in Artforum, the Los Angeles Times, and New York Magazine and is housed in private collections as well as in the permanent collections at the Huntington Library, the California Museum of Photography at Riverside and the Amon Carter Library. She’s been an artist in residence at the Banff Centre in Canada and at Bullseye Glass in Pasadena. Shapiro lives and works in Los Angeles. as the Barbican Centre, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Haus der elektronischen Kunste, Seoul Museum of Art, Chronus Art Center, SIGGRAPH, Onassis Cultural Center, IDFA DocLab, Science Gallery Dublin, and the Japan Media Arts Festival.
WEBSITE: katieshapiro.com
INSTAGRAM: @abbeyrizzle
Pam Ward
LA native, Pam Ward recently released her first poetry book, “BETWEEN GOOD MEN & NO MAN AT ALL, World Stage Press, 2022. Author of two novels, “WANT SOME GET SOME,” Kensington, and “BAD GIRLS BURN SLOW,” Kensington, Pam is a UCLA graduate, “California Arts Council Fellow,” “Pushcart Poetry Nominee,” and editor of the first anthology of Los Angeles black women poets entitled, “The Supergirls Handbook.” While operating a design studio and teaching at Art Center College of Design, Pam merged writing and graphics to produce “My Life, LA” documenting Black Angelinos in poster/stories. Pam’s literary showcase, “I Didn’t Survive Slavery For This!” a multi-media poetic riff on life post emancipation, was featured in the LA Weekly and performed at a variety of venues. A recent facilitator at the Beyond Baroque’s Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop, the longest running workshop in Los Angeles, Pam served as a board member there for eight years and served as a board member to The World Stage performance art/literary space. She recently completed her fourth novel “The Last Dance on Central Ave.,” about her aunt’s dalliance with jazz and the Black Dahlia murder.
WEBSITE: pamwardwriter.com
Fracking for daddy
PAM WARD
Maybe the front steps go.
Or the hallway wall cracks.
Or the floors never match up again.
A rugged seismic shift sounding
like Dad putting his Bug in fifth
causing our shoulders to rear up & back.
Daddy got trapped in his Volkswagen
during the Baldwin Hills Dam Disaster.*
Mom said he slid from La Cienega
all the way down to Fedco
killing the “V-dub” for good.
I remember our rides. Slauson to Watts.
hearing streets chirp like crickets
from all those failing bad brakes.