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"People always say that you have to see Europe," says writer Mercedes Helnwein, her red hair shining in the fading sunlight of a sweltering Los Angeles afternoon. "Well, it's just as important to get out and see America."
Helnwein lounges at a Los Feliz coffee shop with photographer Alex Prager and filmmaker Beth Riesgraf. The trio are recounting the two sweat-soaked weeks they spent last summer crammed in a Dodge Neon documenting life in the tiny towns that dot the swollen belly and aching heart of Middle America.
The results of this grinding effort will be showcased Saturday in a multimedia art installation called "America Motel," staged at a hotel of the same name in Lincoln Heights. Jason Lee, who's previously headed up about 10 such events featuring local artists, will act as co-host.
The decision to hold their exhibition at a motel came after the women stayed in a particularly bizarre motel in Kentucky. "The place was in the middle of nowhere," Prager says. "Everything in it clashed with everything else in the most perfect way."
Finding a local motel willing to play host to the event, however, took some legwork. "We think there's weird prostitution going on at most motels," Prager confides. But eventually they hit on the America Motel, which feels strikingly similar to the places where they bedded down during their road trip. It is fittingly located just off the freeway, amid the bleak industrial landscape on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles. Seven ground-level rooms in the motel's two grim beige stucco buildings will be the staging ground.
Although each woman focused on a separate project in her respective medium -- photography, film and writing -- there is a striking cohesion to the final product, attributable to their shared experiences.
Each morning they pulled out a well-worn map and circled the...