Villa Aurora Events Archive
October 2025
Villa Aurora X O-Town House Exhibition "Whispering Bells"
O-Town House
Info
In January of 2025, the Palisades Fire came within feet of Villa Aurora. Miraculously, the house survived, allowing us to continue our work promoting intercultural exchange and fostering dialogue in arts and culture.
Located at the former home of Jewish-German writer Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta, Villa Aurora is dedicated to preserving the legacy of artists and intellectuals who found refuge from Nazi persecution in Los Angeles. For the past 30 years, Villa Aurora has been an artist residence, a place where exile and expression meet, where history and contemporary events converge. During the process of rebuilding, we are working with local partners to present our artists’ work within the city.
At O-Town House, Villa Aurora has found a temporary home away from home. A magical place located in the Granada Buildings, built in 1927 Spanish Revival Style echoing Villa Aurora’s architecture on the other side of Wilshire Boulevard. In addition to that we have found a kindred spirit and true inspiration in the founder and curator of O-Town House: Scott Cameron Weaver.
This group exhibition at O-Town House gallery is our kickoff anniversary show with works of artists spanning thirty years of our residency program. At the same time, it is the beginning of an annual exhibition series that will promote future fellows’ works in Los Angeles.
The exhibition Whispering Bells takes its name from the drought-tolerant flower species known as fire followers. The dry, bell-shaped flowers play a rustling song when caught in the wind. Its seeds are triggered by burnt material to start a new life cycle.
Whispering Bells offers a glimpse into the rich artistic legacy created by almost 500 resident artists since 1995 with works by Villa Aurora alumni Achim Mohné (2000), Klaus Pockrandt (2016), Sarah Szczesny (2021), Joram Schön (2024) and Fern Liberty Kallenbach Campbell (2024).
Together with O-Town House, this anniversary show celebrates old friends and new partners: international alliances showcasing our role as transatlantic bridge-builders and local connections anchoring our resident artists in Los Angeles.
Whispering Bells is curated by Friedel Schmoranzer and Scott Cameron Weaver. The exhibition is funded by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, with generous support from our long-standing partner, Saxony-Anhalt Arts Foundation.
About the Artists
Achim Mohné's interdisciplinary, media-artistic research into the extension of photography and its paradigmatic change through digitality is constantly evolving with new media and their apparatuses. In multimedia installations, sculptures, performances, sound and video works, interactive 3D visualizations with augmented reality or in VR game engines, as well as sculptural translations between digital and real space, works in public space and publications, he calls for a critical distance to the authenticity of the post-photographic image. His complex interventions address media-immanent issues of surveillance, manipulability, artificial intelligence, and virtuality, and examine our interaction with the world in terms of pressing social, technological, geopolitical, ecological, or cultural issues, with a particular focus on nature and environmentalism.
Klaus Pockrandt focusses on graphics, typography, exhibition and illustration as a freelance designer of visual communication, artist and teacher.
Co-founder and partner of the design studio atelier42 / visual communication furák, girod, pockrandt gbr
He holds a guest professorship for creative and artistic basics and drawing at the Department of Design Burg Giebichenstein art academy Halle.
Sarah Szczeny’s method of dissecting, distorting and separating images, such as cartoon film elements, characterizes her collage, painting and video work.
She examines the conditions of painting by stretching the medium’s boundaries through experimental interventions – for example by using gif and loop techniques as well as sound effects -, a multidimensionality is created that gives the painting character of movement and thus locates it in the tradition of cartoons. In this process of animation of collages, which is so essential for her work, Szczesny combines formal studies and citations of pop culture and art history.
Joram Schön, born and raised in Berlin-Moabit, is an artist and filmmaker. He studied fine arts at UdK Berlin in the class of Thomas Zipp. He has participated in several group, duo, and solo exhibitions in Germany and abroad. In his drawings he combines nature and urban observations. He preserves urban change in his critical questions about topographies and architecture. He is currently doing his master's degree at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne (KMH), combining the mediums of drawing and filmmaking to realize autobiographical short stories.
Fern Liberty Kallenbach Campbell, born in New York, grew up in Berlin, and lives and works in Halle (Saale). She studied communication design at Burg Giebichenstein and completed her bachelor's degree in 2021 with a focus on illustration in the class of Prof. Georg Barber. In 2023 she completed her diploma in textile art in the class of Prof. Caroline Achaintre. Fern processes her personal and digital reality in the form of tapestries. Here, the boundaries between good and evil become blurred, as well as the boundaries between self-medication and addiction, chaos and harmony. The dining table is a recurring element in her works.
Visit + Location
O-TOWN HOUSE
672 S. Lafayette Park Place, Suite 44 / 43
Los Angeles, CA 90057
T: +1 213 263 9428
home@o-townhouse.art
Hours:
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 12 - 6 pm and by appointment
Please contact us if you would like to come by at another time!
Street parking available and at Wii Spa with car wash included.
Access to the building at the gate by using the call-box to call O-Town House from its menu (Dial: 044). Take the stairs immediately to the left.
The gallery is accessible by elevator. If you need assistance please let us know.
Villa Aurora X Lookout FM Radio - Episode 8 of "if the house could speak"
Radio LOOKOUT FM
In January of 2025 the Palisades Fire came within feet of Villa Aurora. Miraculously, the house survived, and with it the radio transmitter that broadcasts from there throughout the Santa Monica Mountains and the beaches below.
This series explores the voices, past and present, that reverberate at Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger’s former home. For the past 30 years, Villa Aurora has been an artist residence, a place where exile and expression meet, where history and contemporary events converge.
During the process of rebuilding and awaiting our artists’ return, we will be broadcasting newly produced, archival and historical footage for you to listen to and maybe wonder: Is this really only a house or, like Carl Jung suggests, can the composition of a room induce the realization of new truths?
Each episode of if the house could speak will be broadcast on a loop for 24 hours with no interruption starting at 12 PM Pacific Daylight Time. For our listeners across the world, that corresponds to 7 PM Coordinated Universal Time and 9 PM Middle European Time.
Episode 8
A Feuchtwanger Home Movie & Whispering Bells
The first part of this episode features the soundtrack of an unreleased film, shot by fellow German emigré Albrecht Joseph, which offers a rare glimpse into the life of Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger at their Los Angeles home, Villa Aurora. The couple share thoughts on their daily rhythms, their collection of books, and the ubiquity of the automobile in Los Angeles, the audience is treated to their reflections on the Los Angeles of that time.
The second part of this episode was recorded at the opening of Whispering Bells. Whispering Bells is a commemorative group exhibition celebrating 30 years of Villa Aurora’s artist residency program, featuring works by past and present fellows. Held at O-Town House, located in the historic Grenada Building the show highlights Villa Aurora’s transatlantic and local cultural ties. Named after the drought-tolerant flower which blooms after fire, the exhibition symbolizes resilience, renewal, and the enduring legacy of the nearly 500 resident artists who have passed through Villa Aurora. It also marks the beginning of an annual series promoting future fellows’ work in Los Angeles. Friedel Schmoranzer gives an introduction and then Andrew King and Doreen Kutzke of YodelRoar perform their unique bagpipe/yodeling duo.
About LOOKOUT FM
LOOKOUT FM is a West Coast terrestrial radio home for the broadcast of "transmission art:" experimental audio composition, modern serials, data sonification, radio plays, multi-day compositions, and radio-centric performances. Their licensed stations in Burbank, Hollywood, and Pacific Palisades function as FM exhibition spaces where radio art is presented without regard to constraints of time, structure, or commercial consideration.
Villa Aurora X Lookout FM Radio - Episode 9 of "if the house could speak"
Radio LOOKOUT FM
In January of 2025 the Palisades Fire came within feet of Villa Aurora. Miraculously, the house survived, and with it the radio transmitter that broadcasts from there throughout the Santa Monica Mountains and the beaches below.
This series explores the voices, past and present, that reverberate at Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger’s former home. For the past 30 years, Villa Aurora has been an artist residence, a place where exile and expression meet, where history and contemporary events converge.
During the process of rebuilding and awaiting our artists’ return, we will be broadcasting newly produced, archival and historical footage for you to listen to and maybe wonder: Is this really only a house or, like Carl Jung suggests, can the composition of a room induce the realization of new truths?
Each episode of if the house could speak will be broadcast on a loop for 24 hours with no interruption starting at 12 PM Pacific Daylight Time. For our listeners across the world, that corresponds to 7 PM Coordinated Universal Time and 9 PM Middle European Time.
Episode 9
Thomas Ankersmit Double Feature
Part 1
Figueroa Terrace is a 37-minute composition by Dutch artist and composer, and former Villa Aurora resident, Thomas Ankersmit. Ankersmit is one of the foremost contemporary practitioners of the Serge Modular Synthesizer, an instrument originally designed at CalArts in the early 1970s by Serge Tcherepnin as a democratic alternative to the costly modular systems of its era — a “people’s synthesizer” intended for communal experimentation and education.
In the winter of 2011–2012, Ankersmit was invited to CalArts to record new music with the school’s restored Black Serge system, a unique instrument built and continually modified by generations of students. The sessions took place both at CalArts in Valencia and in Los Angeles, culminating in a premiere at REDCAT, Downtown.
In Figueroa Terrace, the city’s presence is abstract yet tangible: expansive, unstable, bathed in voltage and heat. The piece drifts between near-silence and roaring density, mirroring Los Angeles’ vastness and volatility, its electric hum, its distant horizons, and its layered history of art and invention.
Part 2
Thomas Ankersmit and Valerio Tricoli
Zwerm Voor Tithonus is a track from Thomas Ankersmit and Valerio Tripoli’s collaborative album Forma II. Their compositions on this album feature layers of static, hum and dissonance, as well as electroacoustic field recordings that range from metal foil floating on ultrasonic sound-beams to mechanical clickers recorded in abandoned radar domes at Teufelsberg, Germany, a site that once housed a Cold War spy station.
About LOOKOUT FM
LOOKOUT FM is a West Coast terrestrial radio home for the broadcast of "transmission art:" experimental audio composition, modern serials, data sonification, radio plays, multi-day compositions, and radio-centric performances. Their licensed stations in Burbank, Hollywood, and Pacific Palisades function as FM exhibition spaces where radio art is presented without regard to constraints of time, structure, or commercial consideration.
Artist Talk with Sarah Szczesny and Olivia Mole
O-Town House
Info
Artist talk with Villa Aurora Fellow 2021, Sarah Szczesny, artists and writer Olivia Mole.
Sarah Szczesny had her solo exhibition at O-Town House in 2022 and now she is back as part of our anniversary show celebrating old friends and new partners.
Whispering Bells is curated by Friedel Schmoranzer and Scott Cameron Weaver. The exhibition is funded by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany, with generous support from our long-standing partner, Saxony-Anhalt Arts Foundation.
About the Artists
Sarah Szczeny’s method of dissecting, distorting and separating images, such as cartoon film elements, characterizes her collage, painting and video work.
She examines the conditions of painting by stretching the medium’s boundaries through experimental interventions – for example by using gif and loop techniques as well as sound effects -, a multidimensionality is created that gives the painting character of movement and thus locates it in the tradition of cartoons. In this process of animation of collages, which is so essential for her work, Szczesny combines formal studies and citations of pop culture and art history.
Olivia Mole is an artist and educator who works across disciplines including installation, performance, drawing, and animation. She examines the ways in which popular culture serves historical and contemporary ideologies and explores ways in which those ideologies can become unfixed, politically and personally.
She has participated in exhibitions, screenings, and performances at the Hammer Museum, 2220 Arts, Weirdo Night, Gattopardo LA, LAXART, JOAN Los Angeles, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive, The Wattis Institute, Southern Exposure and Cloaca Projects, San Francisco, among others, and teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in video, performance, and studio practices at UCLA, UC Riverside and California Institute of the Arts.
Visit + Location
O-TOWN HOUSE
672 S. Lafayette Park Place, Suite 44 / 43
Los Angeles, CA 90057
T: +1 213 263 9428
home@o-townhouse.art
Hours:
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 12 - 6 pm and by appointment
Please contact us if you would like to come by at another time!
Street parking available and at Wii Spa with car wash included.
Access to the building at the gate by using the call-box to call O-Town House from its menu (Dial: 044). Take the stairs immediately to the left.
The gallery is accessible by elevator. If you need assistance please let us know.
Villa Aurora X Lookout FM Radio - Episode 10 of "if the house could speak"
Radio LOOKOUT FM
In January of 2025 the Palisades Fire came within feet of Villa Aurora. Miraculously, the house survived, and with it the radio transmitter that broadcasts from there throughout the Santa Monica Mountains and the beaches below.
This series explores the voices, past and present, that reverberate at Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger’s former home. For the past 30 years, Villa Aurora has been an artist residence, a place where exile and expression meet, where history and contemporary events converge.
During the process of rebuilding and awaiting our artists’ return, we will be broadcasting newly produced, archival and historical footage for you to listen to and maybe wonder: Is this really only a house or, like Carl Jung suggests, can the composition of a room induce the realization of new truths?
Each episode of if the house could speak will be broadcast on a loop for 24 hours with no interruption starting at 12 PM Pacific Daylight Time. For our listeners across the world, that corresponds to 7 PM Coordinated Universal Time and 9 PM Middle European Time.
Episode 10
Boccalero
"If you pray more than 15 minutes a day,” she would say, “there’s probably something wrong with you. If you have your deity in your heart, there’s no reason to beg.”
Written and recorded during her stay at the Villa Aurora, Laura Stellacci’s radio piece is an audio-notebook, of sorts, compiled while researching a part of East Los Angeles’ local history. It is an evocation of the figure of an unconventional Franciscan nun, Sister Karen Boccalero (1933-1997), and the mark she left on Self-Help Graphics and Art, the experimental printmaking center that she co-founded with the queer Mexican artists Carlos Bueno and Antonio Ibañez in Boyle Heights. Her fictional stream of consciousness revisits several moments in time, like the brief period when SHG hosted a punk club in its basement: the Vex would become an important musical incubator for Chicano and Latin/x punk bands in the 1980s. The organisation continues to be an important cultural center for Chicano Art today, encouraging and supporting aspiring artists.
About LOOKOUT FM
LOOKOUT FM is a West Coast terrestrial radio home for the broadcast of "transmission art:" experimental audio composition, modern serials, data sonification, radio plays, multi-day compositions, and radio-centric performances. Their licensed stations in Burbank, Hollywood, and Pacific Palisades function as FM exhibition spaces where radio art is presented without regard to constraints of time, structure, or commercial consideration.