The City of Culver City’s Cultural Affairs Division has announced that Sonia Romero is the artist who will create an original art installation for the Farragut Connector—the passageway extending access along Farragut Avenue from Jasmine Avenue to Jackson Avenue.
“This existing path, which renovations were completed in October, features new amenities to enhance accessibility, safety, and visibility for the community,” the City said in a statement. “Since September 2023, Cultural Affairs Division and Public Works Department have collaborated to realize this redevelopment.”
The City says that the Cultural Affairs Commission embarked on a “rigorous, two-phase process.” Romero was chosen from a field of 11, for final approval in September 2024.
“In mid-November, the artist will begin creation of an original, ceramic-tiled mural, measuring 42 inches in height by 10 feet in length, for the proposed art location within the renovated passageway,” they said. “Final art installation will take place by the end of June 2025. In addition, Cultural Affairs Division will install a tribute within the path whose vicinity is believed to be one of the former entryways and home to a speedway ticket booth.”
Sonia Romero has certainly earned the opportunity; she’s a Los Angeles-based artist with experience in public art.
“She had received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design,” the City says. “To date, the artist has completed 15 combined permanent and temporary public art commissions throughout southern California. Her artworks have been shown throughout the U.S. and are in the permanent collections of LACMA, Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, to name a few. Recent solo exhibitions include a mid-career retrospective at Laband Art Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, and an upcoming solo exhibition at Catalina Museum for Art & History in Summer 2025.”
The art component of the Farragut Connector project is made possible by the City of Culver City and its Cultural Affairs Commission with funding from the Cultural Trust Fund. You can read more about the renovations of the project on the City’s website.
For questions regarding the project, please email Sam Lee at cultural.affairs@culvercity.org or call (310) 253-6001.