2009
Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio create Strawberry Flag, a deployable aquaponic strawberry farm in the shape of the American flag at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration campus. The project uses salvaged strawberry plants, reclaimed water, bicycle power, and a team of veterans — working through the VA’s Compensated Work Therapy program — to create a living artwork and social practice engagement. As a “device of wonder,” Strawberry Flag transforms an underused site into a place of healing, occupational training, creative programming, and community exchange — giving rise to the Strawberry Gazette, the Veterans Print Studio, and new forms of veteran-led cultural participation. The work helps to catalyze a broader recognition of the West L.A. campus as a home for veterans, not only a hospital, and contributes to the momentum that led the U.S. government to convert long-abandoned buildings on the site into long-overdue veteran housing.
