Earlier this year I reported on my Artist Residency with Seattle Public Utilities. I have spent the last 8+ months immersed in thinking about water, especially DIRTY water.
We turn on the tap, we flush the toilet, and we don’t think about where it goes. Likewise we watch the raindrops on the window or on the windshield, and while we are part of this flow it is often invisible to us.
The imaginative activity I have been undertaking while visiting storm water storage facilities, swales and SPU offices, talking to engineers and community members, has been to SEE this flow of water. This is an act of thinking at multiple scales, and its also an act of seeing what is invisible- water flowing underground.
The imaginative activity I have been undertaking while visiting storm water storage facilities, swales and SPU offices, talking to engineers and community members, has been to SEE this flow of water. This is an act of thinking at multiple scales, and its also an act of seeing what is invisible- water flowing underground.
Puget Sound, formerly/also known as Salt Water (see Coll Thrush's book Native Seattle)
Rain flows into a roadside swale in West Seattle
Construction of an underground storage tank that will hold combined sewer overflows and prevent them from entering Lake Washington (Henderson CSO basin, near Seward Park in Seattle)
In the process, I have been considering all the multi-species worlds that are wrapped up in this flow of water. Micro-organisms are as essential to this story as salmon. Hillsides of Himalayan blackberries, roadside swales planted with Equisetum. While humans are currently orchestrating this flow, we are by no means the only ones with a stake in it.
Thornton Creek, near where it enters Lake Washington
The direction of all this exploration is ultimately to think about public art- art in public- art of and for communities. Its not possible to do this without considering deeply where we are, this place we inhabit, and how it has become what it is at this moment. Coll Thrush’s book Native Seattle and Matthew Klingle’s Emerald City have been great leads into a deeper understanding of this place. Seattle Public Utilities’ work with environmental justice is leading us forward bit by bit. Likewise, the current work of artists around the world is a great inspiration. Artists are tackling the entangled worlds of humans and water, cities and many species, in deep and nuanced ways right now.
As I continue my work, I’ll be synthesizing research into an Art Master Plan, and rolling out various art projects of my own as well as supporting the work of other artists. Let it flow!
As I continue my work, I’ll be synthesizing research into an Art Master Plan, and rolling out various art projects of my own as well as supporting the work of other artists. Let it flow!
