ask the water
2024
Natural Kootenay stone, custom stainless steel brackets, glass castings
Bear Street, Town of Banff, AB
ask the water, elicits curiosity about our evolving relationships to the Rocky Mountain ecosystems connecting the park. It offers people in Banff an opportunity to reflect on their surroundings in relation to the cycle of water. The Bow River, and the valley through which it flows, were created by glaciers during the last Ice Age. The continued melt of the glacier at the headwaters of the Bow has allowed the river to flow without interruption for the last 10,000 years.
The artwork references the glacial processes that have shaped the mountain landscape surrounding the Town of Banff and the cycles of life created by repeated glaciation. Impressions of the surface of the Athabasca Glacier were made by the artist in the summer of 2023 and cast in glass to capture the surface character of glacial ice on a microscale. The glass and Kootenay Stone sculpture brings rarely seen impressions of the Athabasca Glacier to Bear Street to visualize a moment in the glacier’s evolving geological lifespan.
Photography by: Chelsea Yang-Smith and Carvel Creative