Events @ ARRAY

ARRAY @ PLAY x WORLD BUILDING GAME
2026-07-25 12:00 - 15:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | ARRAY Creative Campus, 180 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90026, United States
Step into Marooning Bodies, an experimental world building game that invites us to gather, imagine and create together. During this game, we will move through a series of activities involving writing, drawing and discussion within a group to collaboratively build a model of a future society. Guided by artist and creator Mims, we’ll explore what it might mean to build a community grounded in collective care, shared responsibility and new possibilities for living together. No special skills or experience is required. Come with an open mind; ready for discovery. This game experience will last approximately 3 hours.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Mims is an artist, abolitionist, and facilitator based in Los Angeles. Her work spans performance, advocacy, public art, social practice, and the creation of fine art objects. She experiences the body as a site of liberation and approaches it as her first place of inquiry. Grounded in embodied knowing, her practice explores relationships between self, community, land, and more-than-human life. She is deeply interested in questioning as a tool for collective understanding, the role of interpersonal relationships in building healthy communities, and the sacred wisdom held in cultures and ecosystems around the world.
She is the founder of Marooning Bodies, an immersive world building game and artistic ecosystem rooted in maroon histories, biomimicry, and communal imagination. She is also the creator of Uncle Ronnie’s Room, an installation and advocacy project centering her uncle’s incarceration and the collective labor of abolition.
Mims’ work has been supported by the California Arts Council, Converse, LA County Department of Arts and Culture, NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, and residencies in Senegal and Ghana.

ARRAY @ PLAY is a summer storytelling series to spark your sense of play through game and films as a tool for strategy, connection and community-building. Hosted on ARRAY’s Creative Campus.

Our July program brings together an interactive world-building game followed by a short film showcase to explore how we claim space, forge new pathways and shape the communities we call home. Through collaborative gameplay, we’ll gather, imagine and create visions for a new world together. The accompanying films ground these themes in lived experience, from one person’s pursuit of surfing as an act of healing, to an intimate portrait of a vibrant inner-city neighborhood through the eyes of everyday residents. This convening invites us to consider the act of play as a transformative practice, revealing community as something we create and sustain together.

ARRAY @ PLAY: SHORT FILM SHOWCASE
2026-07-25 15:30 - 17:00 | ARRAY Creative Campus, 180 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90026, United States
Ride the tide and roll through the streets with a duo of documentaries lensed by surfers and skateboarders of color. Exploring the persistance of play, these stories on screen remind us that space is something we can inherit or adopt, protect and pass on. From pavement to shoreline, we claim and center these spaces as our birthright. The back-to-back screenings will be followed by a conversation with the filmmakers.
FEATURED FILMS:

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MOVING MOUNTAINS
Directed by Jessa Williams of INTRSXTN Surf
MOVING MOUNTAINS, documents the raw and inspiring journey of Tre’lan, a young Black man from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who escapes his troubled past to find redemption on a remote Hawaiian island. Through the transformative power of big wave surfing, Tre’lan confronts his trauma, embraces healing, and discovers the resilience to reshape his future and find peace in the ocean’s most powerful waves.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:
Jessa Williams is an award-winning director, producer, and creative entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. Her directorial debut, MOVING MOUNTAINS is a short film about her partner Tre’lan Michael, one of the few Black big wave surfers in the world. Celebrated for its emotional depth and cinematic strength, MOVING MOUNTAINS received top honors at the Tribeca x UNINTERRUPTED Film Festival, selected personally by LeBron James, Naomi Osaka, and Joel Embiid.

THE MOTHER TO MY STYLE
Directed by Cleon + Tre of Neighbors Skate Shop
THE MOTHER TO MY STYLE, is a historic record of Leimert Park, a unique and legendary south-central Los Angeles community that is a cradle of black-culture and pan-Afrikan energy. Leimert Park is the mother of a movement, a sound, and the identity of a community that is inevitably going to change. This film is a dialogue between the generations of the past, the present and those to come. It’s a road map; it is a window to where we are coming from and a vision of where we are headed.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS:
Cleon and Tre are co-owners/co-founders of Neighbors Skate Shop a retail/community space located in the heart of the Crenshaw/West Adams districts in South Central Los Angeles. Neighbors Skate Shop is a bridge between generations; an attempt to protect and preserve the legacy of their community in Leimert Park through the love, energy and momentum of skateboarding.

View Clip

ARRAY @ PLAY is a summer storytelling series curated to spark your sense of play through games and films as a tool for strategy, connection and community-building. Hosted on ARRAY’s Creative Campus.

Our July program brings together an interactive world-building game followed by a short film showcase to explore how we claim space, forge new pathways and shape the communities we call home. Through collaborative gameplay, we’ll gather, imagine and create visions for a new world together. The accompanying films ground these themes in lived experience, from one person’s pursuit of surfing as an act of healing, to an intimate portrait of a vibrant inner-city neighborhood through the eyes of everyday residents. This convening invites us to consider the act of play as a transformative practice, revealing community as something we create and sustain together.

ARRAY @ PLAY x LOVE, PEACE & SPADES
2026-08-22 12:00 - 16:00 | ARRAY Creative Campus, 180 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90026, United States
Come play! Join ARRAY and Love, Peace and Spades: Spades Academy™, a gathering that celebrates the joy and creativity found around the game table. Open to all experience levels, participants are invited to learn, relearn and share in beloved games that have brought families and communities together for generations.
Through friendly competition, conversation and collective discovery, you’ll explore the rich traditions behind card and table games often passed down as cherished cultural heirlooms. Whether you’re picking up a deck for the first time or returning to a favorite pastime, Spades Academy™ offers a welcoming space to laugh, strategize and experience the enduring power of play. Bring your curiosity, your game face and your community spirit. There’s always room at the table.

ARRAY @ PLAY is a summer storytelling series where gameplay is harnessed as a tool for strategy, connection and community-building, sparking belonging, engagement and joy. Hosted on ARRAY’s Creative Campus.

Panel Conversation:“The Importance of Preserving Play” with:

DR. XHERCIS MÉNDEZAssociate Professor of Women, Gender & Queer Studies, California State University Fullerton & Director of Education, Love, Peace & Spades™ & Founder, Listen Bridge Change Consulting.
KIMELIA WEATHERS-SMITHCo-founder of Brilliant or BS?—a Black woman-owned bluffing trivia game featured in Essence, Oprah, and Good Housekeeping and curator of Blackout Game Night, a Los Angeles gathering dedicated to celebrating and amplifying games by Black game makers.
DR. NATHANIEL BRYANEducator and Founder of Black PlayCrit, a theoretical framework built on Critical Race Theory and Black Critical Theory that centers the play experiences of Black children. (virtual panelist)

AUGUST 28: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PEOPLE @ 6PM
2026-08-28 18:00 - 19:00 | ARRAY Creative Campus, 180 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90026, United States
Commissioned by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture to commemorate the museum’s opening in 2016, this 20-minute film reflects on six significant events in African-American history that all occurred on August 28 in different years. ARRAY joins the Smithsonian’s nationwide 10-year anniversary celebration of the film directed by Ava DuVernay and starring Don Cheadle, Regina King, Angela Bassett, David Oyelowo and more. A filmmaker conversation with Ava DuVernay and friends will follow this screening.

View Trailer

Additional Screening @ 7:30PM

AUGUST 28: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PEOPLE @ 7:30PM
2026-08-28 19:30 - 20:30 | ARRAY Creative Campus, 180 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA, 90026, United States
Commissioned by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture to commemorate the museum’s opening in 2016, this 20-minute film looks at six significant events in African-American history that all occurred on August 28 in different years. ARRAY joins the Smithsonian’s nationwide 10-year anniversary celebration of the film directed by Ava DuVernay and starring Don Cheadle, Regina King, Angela Bassett and more. A filmmaker conversation with Ava DuVernay and friends will be hosted BEFORE this screening at 6:30PM. Entrance for the conversation will begin at 6:20PM

View Trailer

Additional Screening @ 6PM

AVA DuVERNAY'S MAIN CHARACTER ENERGY AT THE FORD
2026-10-29 20:00 - 22:00 | The Ford, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, 90068, United States
Main Character Energy is a movie night that refuses to stay quiet. Talkback is not only encouraged, it is invited. For one night only, ARRAY transforms The Ford into a cinematic storytelling experience curated and hosted by writer and director Ava DuVernay. Clips from iconic films that honor our shared humanity are paired with vibrant voices from today’s most captivating thought leaders, artists, actors, and filmmakers. Throughout the night, you will not just watch… you will respond, and at times, you will even step into the scene. On this night, you are not a viewer. You are the main character.
The night is about community immersion with others, shoulder to shoulder in the dark, led by cinema that provokes ideas connecting us to the most defining issues of our time. So come and make your voice heard, Main Character. We are ready for your close-up!
