Memory Place
Artist
Daniel Winterbottom
MediumPainted, enameled steel, concrete, living bamboo
Dimensions16 x 12 x 3 ft. (487.7 x 365.7 x 91.4 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineCity of Seattle Department of Finance and Administrative Services (formerly Engineering Department) 1% for Art funds
Description: The artwork is located on a 3’ high by 600’ linear swath that combine a chain link fence. “Memory Place” incorporates five enamel panels designed to tell a piece of community history. The designs of the steel structures are derivative of buildings no longer standing that were historically and architecturally significant. These structures support photographs, quotations, and text that mark important places, people, and events in the local history. Each panel represents a period of development in Haller Lake, beginning on the East End of the site ~
Between each panel is a hedge of bamboo, provides a green wall that diminishes the visual impact of the storage yard and links the five panels with a veil of green.
Artist’s Statement: The history of Haller Lake is very rich and colorful, however it has not been written down nor is it easily accessible to the public. The Haller Lake Improvement Club, an important local civic association, has many clippings and photos in their scrapbooks however they are rarely shown. The concept for Memory Place is to celebrate and make accessible to the public and the Haller Lake community, its own history. The structures, made of tube steel and expanded metal lath support the enameled panels that are solid, thus both translucence and opaqueness are conveyed, which in my mind are qualities of memory, sometimes clear and solid, at other times blurry and fleeting. In addition, the greening with the bamboo extends the concept of the green gateway into the community.
