Lauren Bon with Phong H. Bui

Based in Los Angeles, Lauren Bon is an environmental artist and her practice, Metabolic Studio, explores self-sustaining and self-diversifying systems of exchange that feed emergent properties that regenerate the life web. Works include Not A Cornfield, which transformed and revived an industrial brownfield in downtown LA into a 32-acre cornfield and 100 Mules Walking the Los Angeles Aqueduct, a 240-mile performative action that aimed to reconnect the city of LA with the source of its water for the centenary of the opening of the LA Aqueduct. Her studio’s current work, Bending the River Back into the City, aims to utilize LA’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.

Phong H. Bui is an artist, writer, independent curator, and Co-Founder and Publisher/Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Rail, Rail Editions, River Rail and Rail Curatorial Projects.