Student Work

Course Description

Studio Description: 

An international consortium of activists, philanthropists, scientists, and artists has established an endowment to fund a deep and broad study of Puget Sound waterways and to ponder the future relationship of all life forms in the region in the face of the mounting climate crisis. They know that the only way to do this is to harness the power of science and art together. Science sets out to separate parts and pieces, look closely, count and measure, identify and analyze problems, and offer pointed solutions. The artist is seen as the one who intuits a whole from fragments of perception – offering visual and verbal languages that evoke narratives for our place in the world. But scientists also intuit and envision, artists also take things apart, analyze, remix, and repurpose. By inviting artists and scientists to share space in-residence at the water’s edge, vital links between natural processes (destruction, restoration, transformation) and human populations in the Puget Sound will be made.

The research station at Magnusson Park will be one of many stations arrayed along the water’s edge from Tacoma, WA to Victoria, BC. These stations will host artists-in-residence and scientists-in-residence to live and work together for 3 to 6-month stays. It will include lab spaces for the scientists, studios for the artists and common spaces where they can discuss their interests and discover possible synergies between them. The station will be fully equipped for different types of scientific and artistic exploration, including a number of research vessels that will be kept in a boat shed on the water. An observation space will allow for the recording of atmospheric and experiential data.

Images 1-7  Urban Waterways Research Center, Eric Luth

Images 8-11 Explore/ Retreat, Lara Tedrow

Images 12-13 Open Waters Research Center, Nathan Brown

Images 14-15 The Research Station, Kim Lusk