In Photos: The World of Venice Beach

On 3 March 2017, the day Snapchat goes public on the Nasdaq, Venice residents organize a protest in front of Snapchat’s Market Street headquarters. Since the protest, Snapchat has accelerated its expansion – buying many buildings, pushing out community artists and small businesses, installing private security guards at every corner, and effectively turning the boardwalk into its own corporate campus

The closing of the Venice Beach Freakshow on 30 April 2017 may have been one of the most emblematic moments in the gentrification of Venice Beach. After a decade of circus-like performances – featuring two-headed turtles, five-legged dogs, bearded ladies, sword swallowers and other cast members who glorified the weird and the outcast – the Venice Beach Freakshow was forced out of its location on the boardwalk. The culprit? Snapchat wanted to expand to yet another building on the boardwalk

An improvised performance by Elizabeth, a local artist dressed as a white bird, and Freedom, a homeless musician, turns into a group dance as a handful of spectators join in. Elizabeth and her homeless counterpart decided to perform the improvised dance together on a grassy hill by the beach after meeting for the first time at Cafe Gratitude earlier that day