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| lauren bon, metabolic studio, los angeles, california, annenberg foundation, saic, mary cummins, animal advocates, not a cornfield, bending the river, 100 mules walking, LA river, los angles river, aqueduct |
Lauren Bon of Metabolic Studio is an environmental artist in Los Angeles, California. She gave a really good one hour presentation about our influence on the environment and Mother Earth. She also talked about her various projects in Los Angeles such as "Not A Cornfield," "100 Mules Walking the Los Angeles Aqueduct" and her current project "Bending the River Back into the City." I visited the "Not A Cornfield" project as I used to jog around that park. Later in the project someone brought goats to maintain the cornfield. They were gated into a specific area to clear the brush.
Below are just a few slides from Lauren Bon's presentation. The presentation was recorded. I'll post a link to the video when it's available. You really need to see the entire presentation and listen to what Bon stated about our responsibility to the environment and our world. She also talked about what she, her colleagues and her team have done to try to compensate for the destruction caused by humans. Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio have been friends to the environment and native wildlife for many, many years. We met employees of the studio around 2010 when they found orphaned squirrels which we picked up then released back to the wild when they were able.
Bon stated we need to be more like plants and photosynthesis. Plants give and take. We humans take more than we give back.
She said one good thing about the pandemic lock down was being able to have video meetings with colleagues to be able to talk about these important issues. She posted part of a conversation with Newton Harrison. She said some of the slides about the Great Lakes came from Harrison and his wife.
She sang a song of forgiveness to the buffalo for the destruction caused by humans. I feel the same way about all the death and destruction we humans have inflicted on this earth. We have destroyed so many animals and their habitat. That is why we rescue ill, injured and orphaned native wildlife for release back to the wild. 99% of these animals were harmed by humans and our development.
She stated "artists need to create on the same scale as society has the capacity to destroy." Agreed. Sadly I feel human's destruction is at such a scale that it's impossible to keep up. Just look at global warming.
She did the case study "100 mules walking the Los Angeles aqueduct" for almost a month. She shared the trailer for the film. There are 240 miles of LA River. It was a four minute trailer from November 2013. Here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEzyvt7vQEE
Her case study 1 was "Not A Cornfield" on 32 acres. She stated "Bending the River" will deliver some of the LA River water to that site.
Bon has been transforming part of the LA River. She's included some performative actions which she says are optional. She showed video of edgy roller skaters with some cool music.
She posted photos of wildlife at the LA River site including a cottontail, crow and a coyote. My comment, coyotes use the LA River to travel all over LA. It's LA's wildlife highway.
Lauren Bon owns the private water rights at Metabolic Studios on the LA River. She wants to make it non private because she feels water should not be privately owned. Wish I'd thought about buying land with LA River water rights 20 years ago. Would have been a great place for our wildlife sanctuary and a way to conserve the river and environment.
She said it's the responsibility of artists to be part of the web of life.
She thanked everyone at Metabolic Studios and the school. Below are a few slides.
"Lauren Bon is an environmental artist from Los Angeles. 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 32-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 Back into the City, aims to utilize Los Angeles’s 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. Lauren Bon is the 2021-2022 Mitchell Visiting Professor in SAIC’s Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects.
This lecture is supported by the William Bronson and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Lecture Series in SAIC's Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects."
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