a story of two creeks
map + listening tube
A look into how our built environment and city policies control the flow of water, people, and power.
year
2024
role
designer, fabricator,
researcher, writermaterials
found pvc, 3D print, cement;
newsprint
QUESTION
How did one Minneapolis creek end up the ‘gem of the city’ …
A stretch of Minnehaha creek in Minneapolis, MN. Flowing from Lake Minnetonka to the Mississippi River, it’s a popular creek to paddle and bike along.
...and the other buried 80 feet underground?
Bassett Creek, so polluted by the mills, was tunneled underground 100 years ago. It still flows beneath the highways, parking lots, and city blocks of Minneapolis, most people not knowing of its existence.
RESEARCH
A research process grounded in archives
Scientific Data
Comparing chemical levels and ecological surveys of the two creeks
Historical Narratives
Comparing photos and stories of the people and events that shaped the creek, Dakota Tribe to present day
Maps
Comparing the present and past forms of the creek as they’re shaped by different degrees of weather, infrastructure, and rehabilitation.
SORTING THE DATA
Infrastructures control the flow...
...of water
Bassett creek’s location nearer downtown meant more dams + mills = more pollution.
...of people
More pollution = less desirable to live. Redlining practices zone the less polluted Minnehaha area as ‘White Only’.
...of vehicles
Legacies of redlining inform which neighborhoods get razed for highways. Highways generate salt runoff, which flows back into the creek, harming the ecosystem.
RESULT
How do we share the findings in an interactive way?
1_map
2_listening tube
1_MAP
Through photos, diagrams, and writing, the map compares how infrastructures and policy in the form of dams, redlining, and highways affected and continue to affect Minnehaha Creek and Bassett Creek.
How do we translate these insights into an interactive experience?
2_LISTENTING TUBE
The listening tube is a speculative installation that invites passerby to listen to the sounds of Bassett Creek, buried 20 feet under highways, parking lots, and city blocks.
The tube is meant to be installed over points in Minneapolis’s North Loop where Bassett creek flows 80 feet underground.
The sound of a rushing river plays through a bluetooth speaker embedded in the base of the tube, simulating the buried creek.
Infrastructures of past inform the infrastructures of future; And infrastructures not only reflect our systems of power, but materially express and reenforce them. So while our thinking evolves, it’s imperative to remember that the decisions made in the in 1880s, or 1940s, or 1960s still manifest in our roads and creeks and neighborhoods.