In the CLUI Los Angeles Exhibit Hall - April 2004

From the exhibit:

Diversions & Dislocations: California's Owens Valley

The Owens Valley, 200 miles north of Los Angeles, has often been considered a back space of California, and shadow of the urban southland. From the preparation for the first aqueduct a hundred years ago to the recreational urban tourists of today, the Owens Valley has been an extension of the city, a fact physically asserted on the ground, as more than 95% of the private land in the valley is owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Traveling up the narrow Valley, with its ten thousand foot walls, we follow the cyborg river that is channeled, artificially enhanced, and ducted to serve as the drinking water supply for more than half of the citizens of the City of Los Angeles. We follow two major power lines that bring electricity to the city. We follow a highway connecting the Mammoth ski resort to the skiers, fishermen to their fish, and bottled water to its market.

In this away place, we see the effects of the cause of Los Angeles, and by extrapolation, the codependent relationship between the urban and rural, the consumers and the consumed. The local and remote are two sides of the same coin. This exhibit depicts some contemporary projects that explore and examine Owens Valley as a place and a nonplace, with its diversions and displacements of resources and peoples.

See the original announcement for the exhibit.

A new guidebook (available summer 2004) and 2-day bus tour were also offered in conjunction with this exhibit.