Filifera

Filifera positions a dead palm frond, cut from Los Angeles’ oldest palm tree, inside a dark, pressed-wood vitrine sealed beneath UV-resistant glass.

The palm, a Washingtonia filifera, now stands at the crossroads before the LA Memorial Coliseum as a living witness to the city’s semi-tropical ambitions. It began its life in the canyons of Southern California before being transplanted in the mid 1850s to San Pedro Street, then just a outpost of a growing town. By the late 1880s, it was relocated to the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Arcade Depot, where it greeted new arrivals to the “land of sunshine.” When the depot closed in 1914, public outcry spared the tree from destruction, and it was moved again to its current site, where it still endures.

As one of two works deconstructing and embedding early mythologies for the forthcoming film installation Arcadia Chimera (2026), Filifera serves as a cinematic precursor.