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It's LA River X, remixed by
In the Fall of 2025, students from The Claremont Colleges participated in a field trip to the Glendale Narrows as part of their Pomona College class, 'Water in the West'. Afterwards, Shelby Stanton was inspired to trawl the LA River X collection on Instagram and in the Western Water Archives and craft this essay. Read on for an LA River X Remix by Shelby Stanton.
In the Fall of 2025, students from The Claremont Colleges participated in a field trip to the Glendale Narrows as part of their Pomona College class, 'Water in the West'. Afterwards, Shelby Stanton was inspired to trawl the LA River X collection on Instagram and in the Western Water Archives and craft this essay. Read on for an LA River X Remix by Shelby Stanton.
A Trip to the LA River
A Trip to the LA River
By Shelby Stanton, as part of Water in the West, Fall 2025, Professor Char Miller
By Shelby Stanton, as part of Water in the West, Fall 2025, Professor Char Miller
Before visiting the Los Angeles River, I possessed some preliminary knowledge of the site, though most of my understanding was shaped by misconceptions and rumors: that the river was perpetually dry, that it was not truly a river, and that it supported no wildlife. This narrative circulated among students I spoke with and even among some professors to whom I mentioned the trip. A ceramics professor I spoke to before our trip, who had recently relocated from Arizona, confessed that she had not even known Los Angeles had a river.
In contrast, my sister, who lives in Silver Lake, had long insisted otherwise. She made me aware of the growing community of artists working in relation to the Los Angeles River and has encouraged me twice now to join her on a kayaking trip in the Elysian Valley Recreation Zone. This is a trip that, to this day, we have never taken. My reluctance to agree to this activity stemmed from my own skepticism about the space. When the opportunity arose to go, I proposed alternative activities such as hiking or a beach day. I was subconsciously devaluing what the river might offer as a recreational or aesthetic experience. I also harbored doubts about the cleanliness of the water. I was resisting recognizing the river as an integral part of Los Angeles’s identity, and avoided going to it because I saw it as a neglected waterway, which, on this trip, I learned otherwise.
Image from an LA River X guest host takeover by Fred Kaplan, 2024. Retrieved from Instagram.
Much of what I know about the river’s artistic life, such as projects by Metabolic Studio, mural initiatives, and site-specific installations, comes from conversations with my sister and her Angelino friends. When I told her I was writing my thesis on artists’ reclamation of defunct urban spaces for public art, she immediately mentioned the Los Angeles River as a key case study. The community mural programs, Friends of the Los Angeles River, and individual artists working to reconcile nature and urbanization all reveal the river as a site of both tension and possibility. It stands as an entry point into broader conversations about coexistence between ecological systems and the built environment, and how such coexistence might be sustained.
Image from an LA River X guest host takeover by Gabriel Tellez-Morales, 2022. Retrieved from Instagram.
Despite previous awareness of artists' initiatives, it was not until I physically entered the space that I began to understand its complexity. My earlier resistance was based entirely on misconceptions. When Tilly Hinton, LA River advocate and scholar, gathered our small class group in a circle near the riverbank, she immediately cultivated a tone of reverence, honoring the river’s irregularities and its layered history. Her admiration for the concrete river was deeply persuasive. She emphasized how physical immersion transforms perception. She expressed how reading about a space or viewing it through digital images cannot substitute for embodied experience. It is through sensory engagement, she explained, that we form the most enduring attachments to place.
Image from an LA River X guest host takeover by Benjamin Simpson in 2022. Retrieved from Instagram.
As we descended toward the river, I began to observe the coexistence of life, decay, and human activity. Along the water, I noticed: two children’s education groups exploring the banks, five cyclists passing in quick succession, couples walking with strollers, a blue heron perched near the shallows, dozens of crawfish, unhoused individuals, and runners moving along the concrete path. The setting was equally defined by materials telling a story of experience in the riverbank: shopping carts half-submerged in water, discarded bottles, tents, and expansive graffiti murals climbing the walls. The space was an ecosystem of contradiction. A convergence between neglect and vitality, human presence and natural persistence. I was in awe of how all of these stories can live in the same riverbank.
When we finally dipped our feet into the river, any residual sense of skepticism dissolved. In that moment, I understood what Tilly meant by cultivating love for this space. The sound of rushing water overwhelmed the hum of traffic from the freeways above. For the first time, the channel felt calm. It was an unexpected sanctuary within the city. I was surprised to feel as soothed as I did, my toes in cold rushing water on a concrete bank with two highways with cars rushing by in the overhead bridges. In the most urban corner, the Los Angeles River was still an acting river in that moment.
As we continued walking the riverbank, Tilly connected our observations to questions of stewardship and responsibility. She demonstrated her own commitment by collecting litter as we went, underscoring that care must be accompanied by tangible action. She spoke of Lewis MacAdams, founder of Friends of the Los Angeles River, and how his sustained advocacy reshaped public consciousness of the space. She noted that since MacAdams’s passing five years ago, the river has lacked the same collective momentum. Yet she emphasized that transformation often begins with a single person’s devotion to a project, to a place. One of my greatest takeaways from hearing Tilly speak about the Los Angeles River histories was her passion and care. I hope to show the same dedication she has expressed in her work one day myself, as her care was infectious and left a lasting impact.
Image from an LA River X guest host takeover by Nir Yaniv in 2022. Retrieved from the Western Water Archives.
Reflecting on this experience, I recognize how profoundly my perception of the Los Angeles River changed the moment I entered the water. Tilly’s assertion that tactile experience generates emotional connection proved true. I now understand why artists return to the river as a site of inspiration and refuge, why they see in it the possibility for renewal. Projects like LA River X honor this evolving relationship between people and place, documenting the river’s continuous transformation. The trip showed me how this built, hybrid ecosystem resists a singular definition. I perceive the river, now, as a living canvas. Its identity depends on the care and imagination of its community, as Lewis McAdams renamed the LA River as a living river. With his passing, it seems like there is an opportunity to continue to reclaim and reshape the river into its full potential for the surrounding communities, whatever that may look like.
— Shelby Stanton, December 15, 2025
Image from an LA River X guest host takeover by Phil Rankin, 2022. Retrieved from Instagram.
Meet Shelby Stanton
Meet Shelby Stanton
Shelby Stanton is a senior at Pomona College (class of ’26) with a major in Environmental Analysis and a concentration in Fine Arts. Her senior thesis explores public art’s relationship to urbanization and the built environment through a case study comparison of two public art projects in New York City. She is fascinated with the reclamation of urban spaces and transforming them into centers for art and community and plans to further explore these topics in her postgraduate pursuits.
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