Unseen Currents, 2023
Pvc pipe, floodplain
60 in x 84 in x 57 in
Presented by Metabolic Studio
Lauren Bon is an environmental artist from Los Angeles, CA. Her practice, Metabolic Studio, explores self-sustaining and self-diversifying systems of exchange that feed emergent properties that regenerate the life web. Some of her works include: Not A Cornfield, which transformed and revived an industrial brownfield in downtown Los Angeles into a thirty-two-acre cornfield for one agricultural cycle; 100 Mules Walking the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a 240-mile performative action that aimed to reconnect the city of Los Angeles with the source of its water for the centenary of the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Her studio’s current work, Bending the River, aims to utilize Los Angeles’ first private water right to deliver 106-acre feet of water annually from the LA River to over 50 acres of land in the historic core of downtown LA. This model can be replicated to regenerate the 52-mile LA River, reconnect it to its floodplain and form a citizens’ utility.
“And speaking of Vessel … This is a petroleum based pipe that 2 years ago [2019], I put in the Los Angeles River to test Bending The Riverengineering and … I just could not believe that this material would be the right one for the project and so [in 2021] we were able to change them [these pipes] to vitrified clay pipes. But … just look at what 2 years underneath the concrete of the LA River did to this material” – Lauren Bon, 2021 .