If one of the goals of art is to make us look at our lives and our surroundings in new, unusual ways, then Lauren Bon's Metabolic Studio has already succeeded wildly. If you were up early and out on the streets of Burbank and Glendale last year, you might have seen Bon — an artist and architect and the granddaughter of Walter Annenberg — leading a team of 100 mules through town after traveling the entire length of the California Aqueduct, a project that simultaneously celebrated the centennial of the waterway's opening and raised questions about the interaction of nature, environment and technology. Bon's latest “action,” titled Bending the River Back Into the City, is even more ambitious, as she and her staff are constructing a dam in the L.A. River to collect water for a giant, visually striking waterwheel, echoing the city's original water-delivery system and allowing “the currency of water to create social capital.” —Falling James

1745 N. Spring St., Unit 4, dwntwn., 90012. (323) 226-1158, metabolicstudio.org.

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