Farmlab takes root in the Cornfield
AL NODAL is making it clear that Farmlab is not your father's ecological organization. The executive director of the think tank and civic-minded environmental art exhibition and cultural space in downtown L.A. says that, in the past, environmentalists weren't able to convey their concerns in a way that resonated with the population at large. By contrast, today, "artists, creative people and environmentalists are coming together to capture the imagination of the world for environmental change."
Officially launched Dec. 12, Farmlab began as a temporary sounding board for green, community-oriented artistic initiatives. It has since taken root and grown into a fertile launching pad for such projects, as well as an arts hub for weekly salons, eco-themed art shows, workshops and music events.
Located in the desolate industrial area surrounding and beneath the Spring Street Bridge, not far from Chinatown, Farmlab is truly off the beaten path. Its entrance faces a swath of public parkland known colloquially as the Cornfield. In spring 2005, Farmlab founder, creative director and project artist Lauren Bon and her team temporarily appropriated about 32 acres of the barren land. There, they planted nearly 1 million corn seeds, which yielded the community environmental art project "Not a Cornfield" (its name a nod to Surrealist artist Rene Magritte's "This Is Not a Pipe").
The living cornstalk sculpture ultimately became the site where two Native American Indian tribes healed a centuries-old ethnic war, and where other Angelenos enjoyed their own outdoor musical and cinematic pow-wows. All of this intentionally took place over one agricultural cycle. "Artists have a lot in common with nature and these cycles because they're creating something and breaking it down at the end of the season," explains Bon, whose position as a trustee of the Annenberg Foundation (her grandfather was Walter Annenberg) helped secure the funding for "Not a Cornfield" and Farmlab.
And so it is that the only things left from "Cornfield" are hydro-seeded perennials and an odd circular formation of cornstalks that recalls something out of "The X-Files." The latter, a sort of monument to the project, is titled "Cornhenge."
