PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS: EXHIBITS

Diversions & Dislocations: California's Owens Valley


Los Angeles Aqueduct sign disidentified, presumably by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

Featuring work by: Eva Castringius Aaron Forrest Andrew Freeman David Maisel

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.

Read the newsletter articles about the tour.

A guidebook (out of print) and 2-day bus tour were also offered in conjunction with this exhibit.
See photos form the tour.

RESEARCH + PRODUCTION:
Matthew Coolidge, Kazys Varnelis, Sarah Simons, Steve Rowell, Erik Knutzen