Sonja Rasula: Chasing Inspiration and Community in the City of Los Angeles

“I feel like the whole community has been banding together to really bring the city back,” says one of Los Angeles’ Magazine’s Top 10 Most Inspiring Women, Sonja Rasula. A curator of culture, community, and entrepreneurship, Sonja works to empower Los Angeles’s entrepreneurial and creative community through a number of initiatives, including a revolutionary co-working environment called The Unique Space. “It’s so important for creativity that you interact with other people,” she says.

In the video, Sonja takes us on a tour through the City of Angels, tracing familiar pathways from her personal history to revel both in what lingers and what has been renewed. We start in Sonja’s childhood stomping grounds of Echo Park, then head to downtown Los Angeles—once desolate and dangerous, now thriving thanks to artistic trailblazers like Sonja. “I’ve always loved looking beyond the façade of what something is and seeing the beauty there,” she says. Before we leave, Sonja lets us in on the secret of her old neighborhood’s hidden staircase. She encounters a Dead End sign, then turns the corner—and we discover why it’s well worth it to give the landscape of Los Angeles a closer look.