Lauren Bon

Lauren Bon (born 1962, in New Haven, Connecticut) is an artist who works with architecture, performance, photography, sound, and farming, to create urban, public, and land art projects that she terms "devices of wonder"^[1] to galvanize social and political transformation.

Based at her Metabolic Studio, between Chinatown and Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, her signature works include: Not A Cornfield (2005-2006),^[2] which turned a 32-acre brownfield in the historic center of Los Angeles into a cornfield; Strawberry Flag (2009-2010),^[3] an aquaponic strawberry farm raised at an under-purposed property that was deeded to be a home for veterans in 1888; AgH20 (2007)^[4] a 240-mile work that aims at reconnecting Los Angeles with the elements that made it viable historically, both mined from the mountains of the Owens Valley. Her 2017 project, Bending the River Back into the City, utilizes Los Angeles’s first water commons and allows the currency of water to create social capital^[5] The Optics and Sonic Divisions of Metabolic Studio have exhibited and performed widely, including at MASS MoCA, MA (2016),^[6] George Eastman House, NY (2013),^[7][8] Nevada Art Museum, NV (2014),^[9] Hammer Museum, CA (2015),^[10] and BBC Radio 3, UK (2014).^[11] Bon’s solo exhibitions are Hand Held Objects, at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA (2003)^[12] and Bees and Meat, at ACE Gallery, CA (2007)^[13][14]