“The Tie that Binds,” Art that Makes a Difference

by Deb Shaw

One of 512 Unique Blueprints created by the artist and team to distribute at the Field Office.

Artist Mel Chin has a new Land Art project in Los Angeles, entitled The Tie that Binds. Created for Los Angeles’ CURRENT:LA Water Public Art Biennial, the project invites visitors to connect to the site of the Bowtie Project, to understand water conservation in Southern California and to join hundreds of other LA residents in owning a work of Land Art we can grow in our own yards.

The Bowtie Project envisions a transformation of a stretch of the LA River. Once a railroad yard, this rare, 18-acre part of the River was left completely in its natural state, never transformed by engineers or concrete. Currently overgrown with invasive species, the site is still home to some native plant species, fish and birds.

TTB plot 111-CF, Bowtie demonstration garden and South LA mirror installation.

The Bowtie Project is part of a plan to restore this area of the LA River as an natural, urban state park. The Tie that Binds imagines the future Bowtie Project and the entire city sustained with water-saving, California-native landscapes. Compelled by the beauty of the site and belief that this is a place that should be owned by everyone, The Tie that Binds invites the public to “mirror” this future landscape in hundreds of individual lawns throughout Southern California.