Activist Artist Cienna Benn Remakes Altadena Heirlooms

Black communities in Altadena lost more than houses to the Eaton Fire. They lost family heirlooms, photo albums, and other mementos of their histories. Multimedia scholar-artist and lifelong Altadena resident Cienna Benn has started a 10-month residency at Pitzer College to spotlight these histories. 

Pitzer’s Activist Artist-in-Residence (AAIR) program invites one activist-artist per academic year to promote interdisciplinary exchange. Pitzer College Art Galleries and the Community Engagement Center partner on the program. This year, the AAIR program pivoted to support an individual exploring underwritten, under-historicized, and under-archived legacies in Altadena. 

Benn is an archival practitioner, writer, and cultural worker inspired by matters of identity and image-making. She was born and raised in Altadena; she’s a child of the Great Migration from the Black Belt to the San Gabriel Valley three generations ago. Her grandfather, who was a photography teacher for 30 years, influenced Benn to pursue archiving and photography to preserve historical and cultural memory. 

“As my community was already facing the challenge of gentrification, disaster capitalism has targeted my community even further by threatening to remove what remains of the historically Black community,” said Benn. “Weathering this tragedy alongside the displacement of my family, I felt compelled to speak on the memory of the foothills that I’ve inherited and lived in.” 

Benn is a recent graduate in visual studies from the University of California, Irvine. She is also an alumna of Howard University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Africana Studies. Benn aims to express herself as a keeper of inherited information through accessibility, activation, and epistemologies of care. 

Making Alta-Heirlooms in Community 

During her Pitzer residency, Benn plans to create a family heirloom book to illustrate Black life in Altadena from the early 20th to the early 21st century. The book will incorporate writings about the migration history of abolitionists, Black art history, West-Altadena architecture, and the construction of the local libraries. Benn will also invite Altadena community members to share and steward their photos of family life, homemaking, landmarks, and more. 

She describes her project, “Alta-Heirloom: West Lake Memories,” as one that shows “the sentimental beauty and memory of the African American community in Altadena by highlighting the historically redlined west side of the unincorporated area.” 

Benn is excited to partner with Pitzer students and faculty and to demonstrate her approach to archives as an institutional and social practice. 

“I’m most looking forward to facilitating archival workshops for students that encourage them to see themselves as everyday archivists and collectors,” said Benn. “The core of this project is leaning into the ways we can use our own memories and everyday materials to share our stories with unique voice and perspective.” 

In tune with the Pitzer ethos of community engagement and interdisciplinary study, Benn will work with a variety of partners. She will conduct historical research with support from the Altadena Historical Society, Altadena Heritage, The Claremont Colleges Library, and oral interviews with community members. Benn will also collaborate with community historians, artists, architects, and her cohort of cultural workers, Here Lay A Home. 

Benn plans for her residency to culminate in an exhibition event to distribute the books for Pitzer and Altadena communities. 

“My work responds to the growing need for the careful and activated archival treatment of contemporary African American migrational histories and visual arts in an increasingly digital and displacing landscape,” said Benn.