Chee Salette

Following a national design competition, CHEE SALETTE was selected in the spring of 2016 to create the January 8th Memorial and masterplan the transformation of El Presidio Park, the birthplace of Tucson. The Memorial concept was evolved through an intense community outreach involving the public and various stakeholder groups, before its design was crafted, engineered, detailed and built over the last five years to become the reality it is today.

CHEE SALETTE was founded in 2009 by Tina Chee and Marc Salette with the belief in landscape and architecture’s crucial role in our cities. Its portfolio includes the ArtCenter College of Design Masterplan in Pasadena; the Silverlake Reservoir Complex Masterplan in Los Angeles; the LEED Platinum Crest Apartments supportive housing project in Los Angeles; the re-envisioning of the Los Angeles River between 1st and 4th Street; and the Piggyback Yard Masterplan in Los Angeles. On the boards are the new Freedom Tree Park in Los Angeles, the transformation of Gilbert Lindsay Plaza at the Los Angeles Convention Center, and a large natural habitat restoration project in Orange County, California.

Prior to founding the studio, Tina Chee practiced landscape architecture at SWA, and architecture with master architects Frank Gehry in Los Angeles, Norman Foster in London and Hong Kong, and Renzo Piano in Paris. Marc Salette also practiced architecture with Frank Gehry for 20 years, after having worked in Paris and Montreal.

Rebeca Méndez

Rebeca Méndez, an artist and designer, created the symbols of the January 8th Memorial in collaboration with landscape architect CHEE SALETTE and historian Jackie Kain.

Rebeca is also professor and chair at UCLA, Design Media Arts, where she is the founder and director of the CounterForce Lab, a research and fieldwork studio for art, design and environment. Her research and practice investigates design and media art in public space, critical approaches to public identities and landscape, and artistic projects based on field investigation methods. Méndez’s diverse works develop within science, design and art through immersive installations, sound, video, photography, book arts, and drawing, with focus on post-humanism, eco-feminism, anthropocene and environmental justice.

Rebeca has received significant recognition including an honorary doctorate from Art Center College of Design (2019), The Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Program, Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, California (2019-22); inclusion into the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2019), inclusion in the One Club Creative Hall of Fame (2017); 2017 Medal of AIGA, and the 2012 National Design Award in Communication Design. Solo exhibitions: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Hammer Museum, Nevada Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Oaxaca, Mexico. Group exhibitions: 55th Venice Biennial, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of Art, and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

Jackie Kain

Jackie Kain researched the history of Tucson and southern Arizona to establish the list of thirty-two moments captured in the history symbols created by Rebeca Méndez.

Jackie is a multimedia producer and curator with extensive experience in public media, the arts and education. At the PBS affiliate in Los Angeles, she was Senior Vice President responsible for production, editorial content and strategy for the station’s internet and mobile platforms. She led KCET to numerous awards including the Peabody, Webby, Japan Prize and Communication Arts awards for its digital projects. Jackie has also worked with arts and educational organizations ranging from the American and British Film Institutes to USC Annenberg; from the Kitchen in NYC to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Jackie is trained as an historian with an MA and MPhil from Columbia University in Modern European social/cultural history. Currently she serves on the public interpretation committee for the Clinton Church Restoration project which is restoring the nearly 130 year-old Clinton A.M.E. Zion Church for adaptive reuse as an African American heritage site and cultural center in Great Barrington, MA, where civil rights pioneer, W.E.B. Du Bois, was born and raised. Jackie is part of the architecture/design team responsible for Tucson’s January 8th Memorial. Her focus: community and history.