WaterWorks 2017
Upstream
June 2017
Main Street, Bozeman, Montana
Mountain Time Arts commissioned thirteen regional artists and designers to create installations in storefront windows on Main Street in downtown Bozeman, Montana. Each artist collaborated with a conservationist or scientist for these research-based interdisciplinary projects about water conservation.
The UPSTREAM installations inspired pedestrians who traveled Main Street in Bozeman to think about their own relationship to water conservation and usage.
Science Advisors
Patrick Flowers, Fish Wildlife and Parks, Supervisor
Brian Heaston, City of Bozeman Project Engineer
Lain Leoniak, former City of Bozeman Water Conservation Specialist,
Whitney Lonsdale
Ray Rasker, Ph.D, Executive Director, Headwaters Economics
Gretchen Rupp, Hydrologist
Dr. Otto Stein, Professor of Civil Engineering
Dr. Craig Woolard, Public Works Director, City of Bozeman
Laura Ziemer, Water Policy Advisor, Trout Unlimited
UPSTREAM Installations
Removers, Fixers
Isabel Beavers with Dr. Otto Stein, Professor of Civil Engineering
Exhibited at Wild Joe’s Cafe
Removers, Fixers illustrates bacteria that removes toxins from wetlands soil and water. These functional groups are used in bioremediation to clean the environment.
What We Remain…
Dalton Brink with Whitney Lonsdale, Assistant Director, Montana Water Center
Projected on the Lark Hotel
Brink’s video What We Remain… parallels the different phase changes of water (solid, liquid and gas) with the phase changes of human development.
Ground Water
Jenny Hale with Laura Ziemer of Trout Unlimited and Brian Heaston from the City Public Works Dept.
Exhibited at Rocky Mountain Toy Co.
Hale used photography and illumination to highlight the Valley’s water system and the idea that surface water and groundwater are one and the same resource.
Spring (Four Season Series, 2006)
Wendy Red Star
Exhibited at Heyday
Red Star works across disciplines to explore the intersections of Native American ideologies and colonialist structures. Raised on the Crow reservation, Red Star is an avid researcher of archives and historical narratives. Her photographs are inquisitive, witty and unsettling.
Forest to Faucet Parade Float
Jim Zimpel with Lain Leoniak, former City Water Conservation Officer
Displayed on S. Rouse Ave, Downtown, Bozeman
Forest to Faucet is based on our forests as sources of water supply. The project incorporates discarded chipboard materials from construction sites and uses water-based washes. All of the materials will be recycled into future sculptures.
Life/Source
Kelsie Rudolph with Gretchen Rupp, Hydrologist
Exhibited at Schnee’s
Rudolph looks at the psychological attachment to ritual activity in domestic spaces. She combined industrial and domestic materials to create a project that speaks about functionality in the home in relation to Bozeman’s watershed drainage.
Patchwork
Andy Behrle with Gretchen Rupp, Hydrologist and Dr. Craig Woolard, City Director of Public Works
Exhibited at Main Street Quilting Company
Behrle using eight quilt block patterns as a framework, created moving images of layered video shot in seven locations in the Gallatin Valley from Hyalite Reservoir to the Headwaters State Park.
RAW/FILTERED/SERVICE WATER
Gesine Janzen with Lain Leoniak, former City Water Conservation Specialist
Exhibited at Mountain Home
Janzen’s painting used two sources of visual information: images of the running creek, and the numbers, colors, and lines seen at Bozeman’s water treatment plant. The ‘natural’ world of spring flow joins the ‘scientific’ realm of filters and labels as the water is treated for human use.
Visualizing Water Health
Xander Clinthorne with Pat Flowers, Fish, Wildlife and Parks Supervisor, retired
Exhibited at the Bozeman Angler
The installation had viewers peer through constructed portals and were invited to visualize the ways in which surface water is connected to the aquifer.
Runoff-Acceleration
Kathleen Rabel with Ray Rasker, PhD, Headwaters Economics
Exhibited at Cello
Rabel’s paintings visualize the speed of water as snow melts into the rivers. The colors denote the purity of the water in spring runoff. The work strives to suspend the speed of change in an object for a moment, to reveal the fleeting shape before it moves on.
Infilltration Gallery
Bryan Petersen with Laura Ziemer, Trout Unlimited
Exhibited at Artcraft Printers
Using mixed media and print advertising to construct narratives about social and environmental concerns, Petersen merged concepts of surface and ground water with the history of signage and print advertising.
Downstream is Upstream
Michael & Caroline Running Wolf with Dr. Craig Wollard, City Director of Public Works
Seven sidewalk target locations on Main Street
The Running Wolfs used augmented reality to reveal water systems under Main Street. They worked with the City of Bozeman to locate and understand the function of the infrastructure. Michael Running Wolf’s AR app was downloaded over 2,600 times during the project.
Mountain Time Arts is grateful for the generous support from:
ArtPlace America, Kendeda Fund, Thoroughfare Foundation, Mysun Charitable Foundation, NorthWestern Energy, Rebekah and Chris Bunting, Tim and Kathy Crawford, Dotty Ballantyne, Downtown Bozeman Partnership, LLC., Chris and Maddy Pope, Bob Rowe and Melanie Reynolds, Timothy and Patricia Preheim.