Lauren Elder is an American artist and designer. Throughout the mid-1980s to early 1990s she worked with the interdisciplinary performance ensemble, Contraband, as a set designer and performer. Currently, she lives and works in California, teaches at California College of the Arts, and works with environmental art, as well as continuing in set design. Elder is known for being the sole survivor in the crash of a light airplane in the Sierra Nevada in the 1970s.