Covering a broad range of environments and visual cultures, this upper division course explores the history of Los Angeles through a decolonial and borderlands framework. The seminar begins with Tongva/Gabrielino history and traces the transformations and remapping of the land by Spanish, Catholic missionary, Mexican and Anglo-American empires. Relying on the Catholic Mexican Indigenous and Chicano ritual, Día de los Muertos, as a touchstone, the course investigates how aesthetic projects in Los Angeles have resisted the colonization of space, time, and being. We will cover topics including modernity/coloniality, conversion and assimilation, the politics of public art, and the outstanding role race has played in shaping the cultural landscape. Students will learn to analyze a contemporary opera, historic maps, murals, sculpture, socially-engaged art performances and photographs. Students will be tasked with generating small-scale collages and drawings in response to historic and contemporary themes. Local cultural workers and artists will be invited to speak with the class.