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Description:
Stone spillways and meandering walls
invite visitors to enter the green space at the corner of Warner and
Hardy roads. The artist worked with engineers to enhance this
landscape that functions as a flood water retention basin for the
adjacent development. Boat shaped tables made for this site refer to
the occasional flooding that the basin experiences. Native plants
provide food and cover for wildlife that has been attracted to the
basin for water. Visitors can walk down a stone path that leads into
the occasionally flooded basin.
Funding:
This project was funded by the individual developer as a requirement
of Tempe's Art in Private Development Ordinance.
Artist biography:
Laurie Lundquist is an artist and educator who brings a deep
interest in natural systems and engineering to the design process.
Environmental issues are often a subtext in her sculptural
installations and planning process. Lundquist's work is concept
driven, she chooses from a wide variety of materials and methods to
integrate art works into a given site. She believes that designing
artwork into municipal projects can reinforce connection to place by
drawing on specific observations, local memories and visible
landmarks to underscore the identity of a given place. As a design
team artist, Lundquist has collaborated effectively with architects
engineers and planners to integrate art into the overall design of
numerous public projects.
Artist statement:
"Connection to place is a powerful
elemental relationship that influences our way of being in the
world. As an artist I aspire to design places or circumstances that
will trigger a sense of connection to our surroundings. Place making
in the urban environment becomes a vehicle for reinforcing my own
relationship to the city and hopefully empowers other people in the
same way." |
