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Inspired specifically by the teachings of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn, olivas’ daily motion, movement, and meditations through South Central Los Angeles, where he has resided since 2017, has become a central figure in this work. The series is also a reflection on policing and poverty, as seen through the visible chain link fences that echo the recursive caging of neighborhoods. Other works within olivas’ exhibition Let’s Pray (2022) reflect upon land ownership in the rapidly gentrifying community, such as in his installation A prayer for change (2022) that utilizes the rubble, rocks, and concrete neglected and left behind in the front of his apartment building by his landlord during the pandemic. Vanessa Arizmendi, curator of Let’s Pray (2022), writes on this installation and assemblage sculpture which incorporates the original camper shell from the 1987 Ford Ranger (“la trokita blanca”) used by the Olvias family for road trips across the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. She writes upon olivas’ inspiration from the instruments and conceptual gestures of the toolshed, where olivas sees a spiritual space for creation.

Within the social movement organizing community, and particularly within the contemporary abolitionist movement, the image of the dandelion has been utilized to communicate resilience, strength, and the perseverance of communities impacted by the prison-industrial complex. The artist’s routine photographing of the dandelion, collecting dozens of photographs of dandelions during his walking meditations through South Central, coincides with this philosophy, particularly in his decision to utilize what he calls an “abolitionist technology”: his iPhone. The social movement organizing tool, a smart phone, has been the primary instrument in the recordings of both police violence as well as protests, and in this instance, has become an instrument for healing. Many of the conversations and projects at the Crenshaw Dairy Mart, particularly in the research for the inaugural exhibition Yes on R! Archives and Legal Conceptions (Part 1: 2011 - 2013), have presented the historical precedents of the dandelion as an object of hope through the organizing efforts of Southern California organizations Dignity and Power Now (DPN), the Coalition to End Sheriff Violence (C2ESV), the collective and initiative Freedom Harvest, and the performance series “Rise of the Dandelions” (#riseofthedandelions). The exhibition predominantly highlighted the artwork of the movement since 2011, and most notably archived an understanding that the arts were often employed as the first response to injustices in the movement of these organizations and initiatives. The grassroots efforts of these organizations and initiatives, founded by Crenshaw Dairy Mart co-founder Patrisse Cullors, have each culminated in successful decarceration plans and justice reinvestment initiatives over the decade, which in 2020 through the landslide victory of ballot measure R (Yes on R) led to the cancellation of a 3.5 billion dollar jail expansion plan in Los Angeles.

In the ways the dandelion appears through pavement cracks, against all odds, the image of the dandelion is an allegory of how one singular dandelion may propagate and spread over one hundred seeds - the artist specifically cites 172 seeds - upon it blooming in the wind. This inextricable and mutual commitment to the relational in-between - between seeds and wind, movement and change, being and interbeing - is a concept integral to social movement organizing. The concept of “inter-being,” derived from the writings of Thich Nhat Hahn, presumes this commitment to mutuality, the commitment to each other, to each others’ growth, transformation, and change. Much of these frameworks are embodied and expanded by olivas in his practice, in particular through the writings of Black feminist author bell hooks and specifically a chapter on mutuality in her text all about love. This relationship of constancy and commitment to inter-being informs much of olivas’ discourse around labor as well, particularly through the vernacular of his working class Southern California Latinx background. The body of work and methodology olivas has developed and employed since 2013, entitled “the poetics of labor”, shapes new meanings in his role at the Crenshaw Dairy Mart, particularly in the collective’s proximity to social movement organizing. This relationship of constancy, this commitment to inter-being, becomes largely an abolitionist tenet: the commitment to the mutual spiritual growth of each other, and which itself is a form of labor and praxis. This commitment to the caring and loving of others and its reciprocal exchange becomes the labor of movement, the labor of collective work, and the poetry in between interbeing.