“∆” (“Delta”) is the title character of a site-specific performance that took place over the course of a month in Bee Canyon Park, in the Granada Hills section of Los Angeles—across the street from the Metropolitan Water District’s largest drinking water treatment plant, and nearby to the super-leaky Aliso Canyon methane storage facility. Every day from 4—6pm, a new performer or group of performers assumed the ∆ persona anonymously.
Like a pool of water being treated—flowing in, changing state, flowing out—∆ signifies difference, a changing state, dislocation, in process and in dispute. ∆ is a mercurial messenger, a conduit, and a portal existing in multiple locations at once—present, accessible and responsive to both local and remote sites (∆ could also be Delta, Utah; home to the Intermountain Power Project, which burns coal to make electricity for Los Angeles, 500 miles away). Embodying the remote “grounding” of LA’s water and power infrastructure across vast distances, ∆ is of the landscape, a bit of sediment washed down from the San Joaquin River Delta, not a guide, but a transplant from the source.
