Images by Tim Aukshunas and Santa Monica History Museum
There are certain images conjured when people think of Santa Monica: The sun, the sand, the surf, the mountains, the pier. Certain sensations too, be it the cool breeze gliding off the Pacific or the smells of the food vendors lining its historic beach.
The city’s rich and colorful history over the years is on full display—to the tune of 1,000,000 items—at the Santa Monica History Museum. Their work “aims to preserve and share the history and culture of Santa Monica for generations to come, and we promise to be a place that tells the story of everyone in our community,” says its Executive Director, Rob Schwenker.
…Santa Monica has always felt like a smaller community with its own sense of civic pride and an independent spirit…
“Being surrounded by Los Angeles on all sides with permeable borders of course means that we are inextricably connected to the history of the second largest city in the country,” Schwenker continues. “However, Santa Monica has always felt like a smaller community with its own sense of civic pride and an independent spirit that has led the city to be a place where innovation and creativity thrive. As a beach enclave it has attracted many people throughout its history—artists, writers, celebrities, and tourists—but it is also home to people’s everyday lives, and we try to represent the diversity of this history in our exhibitions.”
The Museum’s latest does just that. Coming Out West: LGBTQ+ Elders Share Their Stories, which runs from June to December of this year, features eight elders with connections to the Santa Monica Bay Area sharing their life stories in video oral histories. The Santa Monica History Museum also happens to have one of the most extensive image archives in Southern California, with over 600,000 rare photographs of the city’s development, its popular beaches and piers, and the people who call it home. Here, Waves plums the depths of their impressive collection to examine Santa Monica’s unparalleled history. In addition, we’ll take a look at modern day Santa Monica through the lens of famed Southern California photographer Tim Aukshunas.
For more visit santamonicahistory.org
