Imagine the LA River as a Public Art Destination

The passing of Lewis MacAdams (1944–2020), poet, activist and co-founder of Friends of the LA River, prompted LA River Arts to create an competition in his honor. Held in 2020 and 2021, the competition was a forum for artists and makers of all kinds to imagine the Los Angeles River as a public art destination and find community during the pandemic. 

2022 | Returning the River: A Joyful Intervention

Featuring the 2022 Artists-in-Residence:
Tina Orduno Calderon, Kelly Caballero, and Jessa Calderon
A day of action during the Frogtown Artwalk
September 24, 2022 | FSY Architects, 2902 Knox Avenue 90039

In 2022 we brought three Indigenous Tongva Cultural Advisors onto our staff seeking insights and direction in developing programs and best practices to support the First People, LandBack efforts, and centering the health of the River and all her communities in our work. Moving with them in a flow of ideas and energy towards regenerative practices and communal modes of production, the advisors formed a collective Artist Residency to elevate the voices and visibility of the First People of the River.

Developed over six months of an ongoing creative engagement, Returning the River responds to the difficult questions, “How can the people heal when their river is hurting?”, “How can art heal a river and her people? “, “ What does it look like to be in community with the river?”

Many cultures have rituals that renew human connections to nature and re-establish our vital role as participants in the cycles of nature (i.e. the ecological networks that sustain us). Bridging our awareness of this ancient responsibility to the river, a sacred source of life, our Tongva Advisors stepped into the role of Artists-in-Residence, shifting into a recognizable cultural mode for present-day river dwellers in order to communicate and demonstrate careful observation and collaboration with the river where the river is the lead artist.

Taking the first steps to “Land-back” 
Lewis MacAdams the late poet and famous advocate for the river stated in his unfinished memoir, “When steelhead trout return to the L.A. River, our work will be done.” But how can the trout return without the Tongva to prepare them the way? Tongva history and ancestry are entangled with Paayme Paxaayt, pronounced Pi-mé pah-hīt and meaning “West River”-- it being one of many significant rivers that meandered through and shaped this, the First Peoples’ unceded land. Re-establishing the First Peoples in relation to the land and the river is essential to improving the habitat for trout and every living thing in the LA watershed - because the presence of the Tongva is integral to the maintenance of the ecosystem; they are the ancestral stewards of this network of life - return the River to the First People, and the trout will follow. 

Be an ally.

Local Resources:

Sacred Places Institute
Regenerative Collective
Metzli Projects

WATCH: The Aqueduct Between Us by AnMarie and Isaiah Mendoza

Support local Indigenous efforts to secure land and occupy decision making positions regarding water and land use.
Please contribute to the Acjachemen Tongva Land Conservancy

We gratefully acknowledge support from our grantors and sponsors for Returning the River:

September 24, 2022

Featuring the 2022 Artists-in-Residence:

In this successful pilot project our campers learned about how social and ecological justice go hand-in-hand, how we are all connected, that Los Angeles was called Tovangaar for thousands of years by its First Peoples, how the river came to be channelized, and that public art can be transformative! 

Our curriculum encouraged 50+ kids to think in words and pictures by drawing from river-related word banks they generated with our teaching artist, the poet, A.K. Toney, as they created their own hand-made poetry books.

Knowledge became embodied as they played games foregrounding our interconnectedness, moving and improvising with our lead artist, Marc Herbst, through the riverside landscape, discovering its animal residents from the present and past whom we hope to welcome back to the river one day by being better stewards and collborators with our environments.

Our director, Jenna Didier, guided an approach to public art and place making grounded in site and community-based considerations: encouraging kids to think about the animals human and otherwise that would experience -and maybe make homes in - their work as they traced solar paths, felt the wind, imagined where water flows when it rains and learned the cardinal points at the site as they built new works of art using debris the river left behind.

Our Indigenous Advisors, Tina Orduno Calderon and Kelly Caballero guided our principles and approach towards regenerative building practices like using found objects and biodegradable attachment methods. Their stories remind us that we are not the center of the world, that the First Peoples understood this and lived in a way that nurtured the land and the waters, acting as caretakers, treating all Nature as part of their vast family, resulting in a lush landscape supporting multiple forms of life.

Watch for an expanded Public Art Camp coming Summer 2024!

Partners and Sponsors

Conceived for the 2018 LA 2050 call for proposals, The Art Barge is a traveling structure, housing an interactive archive of the cultural history of the LA River. It is designed to dock at six to eight community centers, river parks, and cultural sites per year. Site partners benefit from the opportunity to activate supporters and community, expand their range of public event offerings, and increase awareness, enthusiasm, and support for a revitalized LA River.

VIDEO PROPOSAL FOR THE ART BARGE

“. . . a wonderful opportunity to bring the local community to the LA River. We could develop associated events with the Art Barge docking, and work together, reaching out to our stakeholders.”—Karen Barnett, River Committee Chair, Atwater Village Neighborhood Council

Just eighteen months after forming, the LA River Arts launched its first public event—TEN FEET: Art Meets the River. Since then we have presented and initiated a range of art installations and public events along the river with the intent to elevate the awareness and power of artistic contributions to the river’s descriptive narrative. The duration, scope, and format of our projects are specific to conditions along the river, the history of the arts associated with the river, and community access to the river.

LINK TO 2020 PUBLICATION 2: LA RIVER Publication 2 | 2020
PUBLIC ART PROJECT | 2014–2019

In its first public art endeavor, the LA River Arts commissioned seven artists to develop site-specific work for river-adjacent sites. Ten Feet: Art Meets the River was a proof of concept for public art along the river, developed in response to the City of Los Angeles' planning guidelines for a ten-foot setback on river development projects. Each was designed to bring vibrancy to under-recognized spaces, generate discussion about public art, and showcase work of the creative community.

Eric Huebsch, GMO Brothers (Hide-n-Seek), Photograph: Eric Huebsch; Ripley Whiteside, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Photograph: Martha Benedict; Earth Activation Group, LA River Milkweed Corridor, Activation Celebration! Photograph: Earth Activation Group; Tim Durfee, Sticks, Photograph: Tim Durfee; LA River Choir, LA River Milkweed Corridor, Activation Celebration!, Photograph: Martha Benedict; Sandy Rodriguez, Echo Park. Photograph: Sean Boyle; Diana Markessinis, The 4th Tree, Los Angeles River. Photograph: Eric Stoner.

LINK TO TEN FEET: ART MEETS THE RIVER | PUBLICATION 1 | EXHIBITION CATALOG | 2016