Past Public Art

At certain points in Rhode Island waterways during spring and early summer, you may see people staring intently at the water. While it may look like they are mesmerized by the water’s surface, chances are they are counting alewife (Alosa psuedoharengus). These fish counting stations are a part of RIDEM’s effort to track alewife populations and are manned by volunteers conducting 10-minute fish counting surveys.

LUMUKU welcomes you to the park to have fun alongside large, lovable cartoon characters. Scattered throughout 195 District Park, LUMUKU’s newest park installation, Over The Top, is now on display for your enjoyment.

Many living beings, including humans, have depended on alewife as a food source. Not only food in itself, the alewife has also provided important nourishment for vital crops when used as a fertilizer. The Three Sisters -- maize (corn), beans, and squash - were staple crops for indigenous communities in the Northeast for hundreds of years prior to the arrival of Europeans.

This piece emphasizes the incredible movement of the alewife. Their movement around and through barriers to make their way up the eastern coast of the United States is inspiring. I’ve designed and created portals for the fish to move through around the box.

Collaborating on the design of this box was great because the design concept is essentially about two very different things coming together. The design reflects both the clashing and marriage of natural and urban life.

This design represents the cycle of how the alewife spawn from the ocean into the fresh waters. It shows the phytoplankton that they eat while in the ocean. Once they transition to fresh water and spawn, the eggs turn into guppies. Once they die off, the heron birds feed off them. All in all, the fish are important to our ecosystem, and this piece is an interpretation of that importance.

A dam which blocks the path of herring from the sea to their original spawning rivers is an example of hostile architecture. I am interested in how infrastructures that restrict and harm other species mirror the structural inequalities in our own city so often taken for granted in the interest of social control and profit.