This Was Water is a multimedia sculpture and sound installation that will debut on May 13th, 2025, at the Dumke Arts Plaza. In 2023, Carey Campbell composed a requiem for the Great Salt Lake, This Was Water. It is a concert piece that imagines a “not-so-distant future in which we will look out over a dry lakebed and tell our children of the thriving habitat that once was, perhaps telling them, ‘This was water.’” Kellie connected with Carey last January and agreed to compose a video work to accompany the premiere performance. At the time, Kellie was also researching selenite crystals that emerge out of the Great Salt Lake beds.  Influenced by Kellie’s research, Carey added elements to the work incorporating the crystals, and we performed his composition on April 5th with four other musicians.

Video:

This Was Water 2024 live-performed audio along with video 1 hour

Documentation of live performance

In-progress extension into public sculpture/sound installation

In-progress photos from fabrication of sculptures:

 Working together, Carey and Kellie envisioned expanding the project to an interactive, large-scale public sculpture exhibit inspired by the dirty diamonds of the Great Salt Lake. Following our proposal, the Shaw Gallery, in partnership with the Matthew S. Browning Center, is commissioning the project to be exhibited from May 2025 until April 2026 at the Dumke Arts Plaza in downtown Ogden. We will exhibit five rock mounds (roughly 8 feet by 10 feet by 8 feet in size) from which fabricated crystals emerge, glowing with lights. The mounds have speakers embedded to play a generative composition by Carey, and lidar sensors will change the sound and lights based on a person’s proximity. In addition, a soundscape will play throughout the plaza, so as a person moves through the space, their experience will transform. As an anchor point, video work adapted from the original performance will play on the screen at the plaza.

 With the generous support of the Shaw Gallery and Matthew S. Browning Center, we hired paid interns to assist in fabricating the sculptures. Each student took on specific leadership roles on the This Was Water project, allowing them to expand their skills and grow their professional experience. Max Richmond, a Geography major, modeled and mapped hundreds of facades for the crystals and directed their assembly. August Roth, a BFA Studio Art major, welded the internal structure of the piece. Xanthe Harris, also a BFA Studio Art major, led the research and development of materials and surfacing.  While much of the internships involved the labor of fabrication, we took the opportunity to join Great Salt Lake Institute researchers on a site visit to the Lake led by Dr. Bonnie Baxter. We learned firsthand about the unique conditions of the ecosystem that produce these crystals.