After the Aqueduct was a 2015 LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) exhibition curated by Kim Stringfellow featuring a diverse selection of projects by artists, designers, and students investigating the Los Angeles Aqueduct—a controversial 233-mile-long hydraulic water conveyance system that has historically been the primary source of potable water for the City of Los Angeles since the aqueduct was first put into service in 1913.

The fates of urban Los Angeles and rural Owens Valley—where the water originates—are explicitly linked together through a contentious past and yet-to-be-determined future. After the Aqueduct envisions the recent centenary of Big Water in the western United States as an opportunity for the various stakeholders, including Los Angeles area city dwellers, rural residents and tribal members of the Owens Valley along with engineers, farmers, scientists, historians, activists, artists, and designers to reexamine water practices and policies that link these shared destinies while considering alternative visions for renegotiating a shared future.

Participating artists included Nicole Antebi, Lauren Bon, Barry Lehrman, Chad Ress, Peter Bo Rappmund, Alexander Robinson, and Kim Stringfellow. Student projects from Cal Poly’s Aqueduct Futures program were featured in this exhibit.

After the Aqueduct was on exhibit from March 4 – April 12, 2015.

A panel discussion moderated by Jon Christensen, former editor of Boom: A Journal of California and professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability UCLA with panelist guest Alan Bacock (Big Pine Tribal member and Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley’s Water Program Coordinator) took place on on Saturday, March 14, 2015.

PRESS

March 28, 2015
LA Times’ arts critic Christopher Knight reviews After the Aqueduct in “Meditations on Southern California water lifeline.”

March 27, 2015
Landscape Architecture Magazine interviews Aqueduct Futures director Barry Lehrman. Click here for the online video interview.

March 23, 2015
KCET Artbound, “After the Aqueduct: Art Considering a Dry Future” by Lyle Zimskind.

March 9, 2015
Estouric’s podcast You Can’t Eat The Sunshine Episode #100: Arches & Aqueducts features ATA curator Kim Stringfellow discussing the exhibit.

Click to download artist project overviews & artist bios (pdf).