Imagine the LA River as a Public Art Destination

The passing of Lewis MacAdams (1944–2020), poet, activist and co-founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River, prompted LA River Arts to create an annual prize in his honor. Launched in spring 2020, the competition is a forum for artists and makers of all kinds to present work that imagines the Los Angeles River as a public art destination. 

2022 | Returning the River: A Joyful Intervention

Featuring the 2022 Lewis MacAdams’ Prize Artists-in-Residence:
Tina Orduno Calderon, Kelly Caballero, and Jessa Calderon
A day of action during the Frogtown Artwalk
September 24, 2022 | FSY Architects, 2902 Knox Avenue 90039

In lieu of an open call for proposals, we listened to the Cultural Advisors we brought on staff this year, moving with them in a flow of ideas and energy towards regenerative practices and communal modes of production. Rather than hosting a competition, the Lewis MacAdams Prize has been reimagined in 2022 as a collective Artist Residency to elevate the voices and visibility of the First People of the River: the Tongva and Chumach People.

Developed over six months of an ongoing creative engagement, Returning the River responds to the difficult questions, “How can the people heal when their river is hurting?”, “How can art heal a river and her people? “, “ What does it look like to be in community with the river?”

Many cultures have rituals that renew human connections to nature and re-establish our vital role as participants in the cycles of nature (i.e. the ecological networks that sustain us). Bridging our awareness of this ancient responsibility to the river, a sacred source of life, our Tongva Advisors have stepped into the role of Artists-in-Residence, shifting into a recognizable cultural mode for present-day river dwellers in order to communicate and demonstrate a careful observation and collaboration with the river where the river is the lead artist.

Taking the first steps to “Land-back” 
Lewis MacAdams the late poet and famous advocate for the river stated in his unfinished memoir, “When steelhead trout return to the L.A. River, our work will be done.” But how can the trout return without the Tongva to prepare them the way? Tongva history and ancestry are entangled with Paayme Paxaayt, pronounced Pi-mé pah-hīt and meaning “West River”-- it being one of many significant rivers that meandered through and shaped this, the First Peoples’ unceded land. Re-establishing the First Peoples in relation to the land and the river is essential to improving the habitat for trout and every living thing in the LA watershed - because the presence of the Tongva is integral to the maintenance of the ecosystem; they are the ancestral stewards of this network of life - return the River to the First People, and the trout will follow. 

Be an ally.

Local Resources:

Sacred Places Institute
Regenerative Collective
Metzli Projects
International Indigenous Youth Council

WATCH: The Aqueduct Between Us by AnMarie and Isaiah Mendoza

Support local Indigenous efforts to secure land and occupy decision making positions regarding water and land use.
Please contribute to the Acjachemen Tongva Land Conservancy

We gratefully acknowledge support from our grantors and sponsors for Returning the River:

2021 | Represent the River: Word & Image

Our second annual competition invited artists at all career stages to submit a proposal in the visual, literary or time-based arts. Any site along the fifty-one mile length of the river could be considered. This was an ideas competition; funding and permits were not considered barriers to the proposals.

judges

Betty Avila, Executive Director, Self Help Graphics & Art. Marissa Gonzalez-Kucheck, Cultural Arts Coordinator, City of South Gate. Addy Gonzalez Renteria, Co-Founder and Co-Director, 11:11 A Creative Collective. Diane Matyas, Artist, museum educator, professor of art and LA River Arts board member. Rex Weiner, Journalist, editor and board member of Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center.

River Fables by writer Tessa Mauclere, winner of the 2021 prize, connected the animals that inhabit MacAdams’ poems, building them from upcycled local materials, and dramatically siting them along the concrete river banks that are etched with MacAdams’ verses.

One of three honorable mentions, Over the Rainbow, by James Piatt used natural sunlight, river water reflection and mirrors to create a sense of wonder.

Remarkable words were key to the 2021 proposal. In Re: The Los Angeles River a project conceived by Figlynn Morgaine, Melanie Winter and Mary-Linn Hughes—the Rebel Arts Working Group. They compiled over 140 RE–words in dozens of local languages to declare the relevance of the LA River. The giant words rang true and resulted in an honorable mention.

Abbi Drew Naylor’s 2020 Frogtown Amphitheaters offered public access and undulating creative space—atop a water filtration system! A perfect place to eat lunch or see a performance.

Fourteen-year-old Ella Kim was 2021’s emerging artist winner for her interactive installation, The People’s Poems. Kim is a member of WriteGirl, the creative writing and mentoring organization that promotes creativity, critical thinking and leadership skills to empower teen girls.

2020 | Imagine the River as a Public Art Destination

Our inaugural Lewis MacAdams Prize, launched in Covid-19’s first spring, was framed as a “blue-sky” project. The entries would, by necessity, be digital. We wanted to see big dreams—unbound to budget, zoning or permitting.

2020 lewis macadams prize

In honor of Lewis MacAdams (1944–2020), founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River, the LA River Arts Lewis MacAdams Prize was launched. Initiated in the daunting time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the open call to artists, designers, and makers in all media pointedly brought home the need for equitable community experiences of public art and culture. The prompt was to imagine the LA River—the city’s most connected open space—as a public art destination.

Judges

Sandra Jackson-Dumont, Director and CEO of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles. Diane Matyas, New York based visual artist and LA River Arts board member; Iris Anna Regn, Civic Art Project Manager, Special Projects for the LA County Department of Arts and Culture; Sandy Rodriguez, LA based artist and recipient of the 2020 Caltech Huntington Art and Research Fellowship; Hamza Walker, Executive Director of LAXART and an adjunct professor at the School of Art Institute of Chicago.