Toward the Then and There
Public Art Installation
King Plaza, Palo Alto
Installed at King Plaza in front of Palo Alto City Hall, Toward the Then and There documents local LGBTQ+ histories systematically excluded from traditional monuments. The installation features a retrofitted payphone surrounded by a spiral path wrapped in polished stainless steel etched with gestural drawings inspired by the Queer Silicon Valley Archive and studio visits with queer and trans community members in Palo Alto. These figures are anonymous yet present, hidden yet seen—activating tensions between public visibility and the historical concealment necessary for queer survival.
Lifting the phone receiver reveals oral testimonies collected through the Queeries Hotline, responses to the prompt: "What do you wish residents of Palo Alto knew about your experiences as a member of the LGBTQ+ community?" The payphone—once critical infrastructure for queer connection—transforms individual listening into collective memory-making.
Inspired by queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz's concept of queerness as a horizon beyond the "here and now," the work serves as both sanctuary and mirror, inviting visitors to reflect on their place within Palo Alto's LGBTQ+ histories and imagine a more inclusive future. This public installation engages community in ongoing dialogue about whose histories are monumentalized in civic space.
"Ghosts in the Valley" presents several large-scale oil paintings on canvas that draw inspiration from the Queer Silicon Valley Archive. These portraits capture intimate moments between LGBTQ+ communities in Palo Alto—gatherings at gay bars, home weddings, and seemingly mundane connections that were once criminalized. Through rich textures and emotive brushwork, these paintings invite viewers to feel a profound temporal connection—a conversation across decades between those who fought for the right to exist openly and those facing renewed threats to these hard-won freedoms today.
For this solo exhibition at the Rinconada Gallery in Palo Alto, Aleo Landeta created this work as both celebration and warning, looking to the archive not merely as historical documentation but as a blueprint for resilience. In rendering these ordinary moments of extraordinary courage, they hope viewers experience a sense of tender recognition—seeing how the past lives within our present struggles and how these historical intimacies offer guidance for navigating contemporary challenges. The paintings ask us to consider what we've inherited from these ghosts in the valley, and how their persistent intimacy might illuminate our path forward.
