Alternate Arterials

Linda Wysong

Alternate Arterials

April 18 - May 24, 2003

Closing reception: May 24, 2003, 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Portand based artist Linda Wysong began her exploration of urban systems with her piece Art at Work, 1983 – 1990, in which she focused on the movement and process of work and the choreography of labor on engineering sites.  Challenging the conventional view of engineering systems as factual, efficient, and value neutral, Wysong posed an alternative view of these systems; one with an emphasis on the people that design, build, and use these systems that shape our lives. Wysong’s solo exhibition entitled Alternate Arterials developed out of her appointment to the Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant Headworks Design Team in 1993.  Emphasizing the connections between natural and built systems, Alternate Arterials is an examination of our strained relationship with water, a life giving force that is both omnipresent and difficult to hold.  Utilizing sound and projected video, Wysong leads us through the vast subterranean systems of pipes beneath our cities: an array of huge steel tanks, pumps, and cement structures.  Architectural in scale, the video projection surrounds the viewer in an often unacknowledged reality of daily life.