FOCAS IN FOCUS Episode Two focuses on the story of the Skid Row Archive and Museum, an arts-based community archive in downtown Los Angeles. The archive documents and maps grassroots community organizing, artistic practices, and activist histories of the Skid Row neighborhood, amidst ongoing threats of displacement and gentrification.
For this episode, we interviewed Henry Michael Apodaca, the Skid Row Archive media archivist, and UCLA intern James Hellebuyck. We talk about how community archives build their own documentary record of social movements, not only to preserve local activism but to bring to light cultural strategies for resistance and to fuel ongoing organizing.
Exploring the relationship between cultural production, social movements, and archives, this episode shows how the work of Skid Row History Museum & Archive is itself a form of archival activism.
The interview for this episode was conducted through a video call on March 2nd 2026 between Tucson, Toronto and Los Angeles, where Skid Row archivists reside. For the episode, we have used archival materials from LAPD performances, as well as oral histories with neighbors and advocates.
FOCAS IN FOCUS is a podcast series dedicated to the life and politics of community archival projects. This podcast is supported by the FOCAS collective —Faculty Organizing for Community Archives Support— and funded by the Mellon Foundation. The series is produced by postdoctoral researchers Maria Torres and Axelle Demus.