New public art installed at the Ship Canal Water Quality project sites

There’s a new cohort of artists that have installed their work at the various Ship Canal Water Quality project sites, including the one at 24th and Shilshole in Ballard.

The art installation is called FLOW: Art Along the Ship Canal, an annual program that brings art from local creators to the construction fences along the Ship Canal Water Quality project sites in downtown Ballard (24th Ave NW and Shilshole Ave NW), East Ballard (11th Ave NW and NW 45th St), Fremont, Wallingford, and Queen Anne.

A panel of artists, community members, and City of Seattle staff make up the selection committee.

Ballard

Lin-Lin Mao Mollitor‘s Be Like Lotus creation is about reminding people to mindful of conserving clean water. From Seattle Public Utilities (SPU):

Traditional Chinese culture regards the lotus as a symbol of goodness and virtue. The lotus grows in muddy water but emerges beautiful and unsoiled. Modern science shows the lotus removes toxins in water thus keeping the water healthy for life existing in it. Be Like Lotus is a call to action for each person to be mindful of the shortage of clean water around the world and encourages us to create new habits or solutions to mitigate the problem. The origami animals which make up the lotus blossoms represent life’s dependency on clean water. 

James Lilly‘s Parallax “chronicles the challenging environmental conditions impacting the regional Chinook Salmon’s upstream and subsequent downstream migration.”

From SPU:

As they pass through the Lake Washington Ship Canal to the Cedar River and Sammamish River watersheds, any change to the condition of Chinook runs effects their chance for survival. Consequently, resident killer whales’ health heavily depends on the Chinook Salmon population as sustenance. The three tabernacles reveal clues about this dilemma including, obstacles, pressures, and circumstances that affect the balance of this unique urban ecosystem.

East Ballard

June Sekiguchi‘s Flow Mosaic:

I have always been interested in screens with patterns that stop the eye before seeing what is behind. In Flow Mosaic, I have taken inspiration from Islamic mashirabiya screens and Chinese lattice work from the historic Silk Road regions as a starting point to create an aggregate of over 100 hand-cut marine vinyl panels­­ of bright primary and secondary colors. The panels are cut in a variety of patterns to activate the construction fence that started with a repeating pattern of water, but a variety of additional geometric patterns complete the mosaic. 

To check out the artwork at the other sites along the project, visit the Ship Canal Water Quality project’s public art webpage.

Photos: SPU