Chronicling the demise of Hollywood Park, one frame at a time

photo by Michele Asselin

Often, the best stories can be found right in your own backyard.

Photographer Michele Asselin has realized this figuratively before, chronicling stories and photos of nannies for the New York Times after she herself became a mother.

This time, she trained her lens on her neighbor in Inglewood, Hollywood Park, the racetrack that was lost to developers late last year. With just two weeks until demolition, Asselin embedded herself at the track, ultimately making over 300 portraits of the fans, trainers, horse owners, and jockeys. She was taken by the architecture of the track, too.

Asselin’s art studio is nearby, in a converted VW factory that is a center of a burgeoning art community in Inglewood.

She stopped by KCRW to talk about the resulting photographs that will make up what she’s calling The Clubhouse Turn.

You can see Asselin’s studio and work, along with that of dozens of others, this Saturday at a kind of “west of the 405” Brewery Art Walk-type affair called Zero Down. 1019 W. Manchester in Inglewood, starting at 5pm.