Streamlines: Tamed Water sculpture

StreamLines: Tamed Water

Category: Outdoor Sculpture; Temporary

Collection: Butler University; Reconnecting to our Waterways

Medium type: Mixed Media; Steel

Date: 2015

In 2015, the urban artist Mary Miss designed the project City as Living Laboratory which created a series of installations for StreamLines along five major waterways in Indianapolis. The installations consist of clusters of mirrors and red beams which radiate out from a central point to nearby streams and waterways. The installation was intended to get visitors to follow the beams to the nearby waterways.

StreamLines was an interactive, place-based project that merged the sciences and the arts to advance the community’s understanding and appreciation of Indianapolis’ waterways. This work was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation and was modeled on the City as Living Laboratory/FRAMEWORK. StreamLines featured a collection of installations along Indianapolis’ waterways and adjacent greenspaces inviting the community to learn, explore and experience the science of local water systems through visual art, poetry, dance and music. StreamLines was administered by the Center for Urban Ecology at Butler University. For more information, visit http://www.streamlines.org or on social media as @StreamLinesIndy.

The theme for the site at Pogue’s Run was “Tamed Water” and explored water infrastructure. Topics at the site included precipitation, infrastructure, impervious surface, combined sewer, buried stream and grey water.

Water is crucial to the functioning of our cities: for transport, drinking, and industrial uses. But it can be a nuisance as well, such as during a flood. We have designed elaborate ways to direct water where we want it and redirect unwanted water to build towns and cities unimpeded by streams or rainfall. One of the most extreme examples in Indianapolis is at Pogue’s Run, a former woodland stream that has been partially diverted into an underground tunnel for over a mile before it spills into the White River west of downtown, so that the grid of city streets and buildings could be built over the stream.

Mary Miss has been redefining how art is integrated into the public realm since the early 1970s. Miss’ work crosses boundaries between landscape architecture, architecture, and urban design. Her vision favors site-specificity and human perception over traditional concerns of the public monument. Miss received her BA in 1966 from UC Santa Barbara and her MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture in 1968.

Mary Miss has won numerous awards, including the 2001 New York Masterworks Award for the Framing Union Square project, the Centennial Medal from the American Academy in Rome in 2001, and an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Washington University in 2000. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Resident Artist at the American Academy in Rome and a recipient of several New York State Council on the Arts grants and NEA grants.