Expectations, 1997 [Enlarge in New Window]

Suzanne Lacy: Beneath Land and Water

The banks of the Big Sandy River are nothing special when the waterway snakes through Elkhorn City, Kentucky--just a patch of mowed grass and a beat-up asphalt sidewalk. The Heritage Council in this Appalachian town imagined something better--something that might enhance the town without damaging its ecosystem and might even divert tourists heading to the nearby state park The Breaks (dubbed "the Grand Canyon of the East") and its Class V whitewater rafting. They just didn't know what.

That changed when Suzanne Lacy entered the picture. With Appalshop's American Festival Project acting as matchmaker, the California artist was invited to work with the Elkhorn City Heritage Council on a plan for the riverfront's reclamation. A 30-year veteran of public art projects, Lacy was perfectly suited to mobilize residents and a far-flung network of collaborators to transform the waterfront.

Now there is a vision. Titled Beneath Land and Water: A Project for Elkhorn City 2000-2004, it involves installations along the river that touch on the theme of land, the waterway, and ecology. Joining Lacy are installation artist Susan Steinman of Northern California, and Yutaka Kobayashi, a Japanese environmental sculptor who came to the United States to work with Lacy. Among the planned installations are stone and concrete benches with fragments of stories related by the townsfolk about their lifelong relationship to the river carved into the concrete--stories that will eventually be broadcast on radio and collected on Beneath Land and Water's website. Other installations include city-wide participation in a tile mural on a bridge's buttressing wall along the waterfront pathway. Made by town residents, this mural resembles an Appalachian patchwork quilt from a distance, while up close the individual tiles reveal images of the river, the surrounding environment, and people's homes. Beneath Land and Water's artist team recruited school children, seniors, and others at the local cafes and churches to engage the public to create the tiles. "What's interesting, aside from the fact that the mural is visually attractive, is that virtually every house in town can be represented, since there are only 800 people in the town limits," notes Lacy.

The plan for Beneath Land and Water's also includes a wetland reclamation project and much more. Although Elkhorn's financial resources allow only sections to be realized now, Lacy, Steinman, and Kobayashi wanted to come up with a comprehensive design that made sense for the town over the long term. To that end, they consulted with Bay Area landscape architects. "The project became a series of connected and sometimes utilitarian installations along a walkway that links one part of town to the other," explains Lacy, "and while we might not get to the whole walkway--across the river, up a couple of blocks, then across the river again--we're hoping that we can create a model the Heritage Council can complete over time."

Ambitious collaborations are a way of life for Lacy. They're part and parcel of the public art projects she has been doing ever since being diverted from a degree in psychiatry. "I was on that track, then I met Judy Chicago," Lacy recalls. She enrolled in California Institute of the Arts, studied with conceptualist Allan Kaprow, then began a long career in installation and performance work. Over the years she has collaborated with a stunning array of people: A Colombian anthropologist and a graphic designer helped create The Skin of Memory (1999), which transformed a school bus into a mobile museum dedicated to families affected by violence in Medellin. Two hundred and fourteen Finnish teenagers plunged into a lagoon on the Russian border in a performance related to world peace, The Road of Poems and Borders (1990). Oakland police, youth, and artists in California came together for Code 33 (1999). And hundreds of older women collaborated on The Crystal Quilt (1987) and Whisper, the Waves, the Wind (1984), to name a few.

In Kentucky, Lacy is not only collaborating with the Heritage Council's President Tim Belcher and Nina Arragon, but has enlisted everyone from Mayor Hank Salyer to Elmer Keesee, a retiree who contributed a video about the strip mines. "When you've organized in big cities, Elkhorn is a simple and fun place to organize," admits Lacy, who rightly figured the Rusty Fork diner would be the best place to network. Although there's much left to be done, Lacy is happy with Beneath Land and Water's initial outcome: "We've managed to form a strong beginning with cooperation from people that don't normally work together."

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THIS PROJECT'S CATEGORIES: Visual > Installation | Americana | Labor | Environment | Politics | Science & Technology | California | 2002