The sight and sound of falling water, a place for birds to rest and endless patterns of intersecting ripples on ponds are all part of an artwork celebrating stormwater recycling.
Artwork description
Water Falls is an integrated environmental artwork installation at Sydney Park in Alexandria.
The artwork consists of 2 parts. In the lower structure, stormwater is harvested from the surrounding streets and filtered in biofiltration swales throughout the wetlands, before passing through a fan of 3 terracotta troughs, gushing into the pond below.
At the entrance to the uppermost wetland pond, a sculpture of 5 troughs is arranged in a zig-zagging, descending line, to celebrate the recycling of water throughout the wetlands. Water is pumped in a steady stream to the head of the sculpture. From there, it falls rhythmically from each trough to the one below, splashing out from both ends in a carefully calibrated pattern as it travels towards the final trough, and eventually falls into the pond below.
The terracotta troughs are suspended over the water on simple black steel support structures that have become part of the wetland habitat, used as perches by countless birds.
The sight and sound of the falling water, the wild birds that take rest on the structure and the endless patterns of intersecting ripples on the ponds below, all form part of this integrated water sculpture.
The artwork was commissioned by the City of Sydney as part of the Sydney Park stormwater harvesting project.
Artists
Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford are award-winning artists whose work focuses on the design and production of site-specific kinetic artworks in the public domain.
Their practice is based in Sydney where they have more than 18 years experience at the interface of art, science, nature and the built environment.
Turpin and Crawford’s works explore the rhythms of environmentally reactive movement and seek to heighten their audience’s awareness of being in time and in space.
