Who We Are
“All the Rivers in the World, Tacoma” is a public art project by artist Vaughn Bell on the University of Washington-Tacoma that reflects on the Puyallup River as life line and connector. It also emerges from the current life of Tacoma and the University: as a cosmopolitan place, home to many immigrants, people from all over the world. This idea has a precedent even before this site was a university.
The campus of the University of Washington-Tacoma is a place of transformation and layers: buildings with history, former uses, and yet older presences as well. Before the railroad cut the “prairie line” across this stretch of land, other lines coursed this way: the paths of creeks, streams and rivers leading to Puget Sound, footpaths and game trails. The Puyallup River, our local river, is the original line and continues as life-line. Its name is also the name of the original people of this place and the Tribal sponsor of UWT.
“More than half of Tacoma’s residents were immigrants by the early 1900s.” (from Historic Assessment of the Prairie Line Trail, p.34) These immigrants came from all over the world and many worked in the buildings that now house the university. Now, students, faculty and staff continue to come from many places all over the world to be part of this community.
“All the Rivers in the World, Tacoma” is a public art project that includes a series of “river gathering” community workshops at UW-Tacoma, and will culminate in a work of permanent public art on campus.
Many of the ideas for All the Rivers in the World, Tacoma, grew out of conversations and collaborations between Vaughn Bell and Antonio José García Cano. Vaughn and Antonio continue to collaborate on the trans-disciplinary pedagogic project WATERshed.
This work also builds on Vaughn's previous work, Sediment Stones/River Rocks, a collaboration with City Meditation Crew for Duwamish Revealed and Jack Straw Cultural Center.
The campus of the University of Washington-Tacoma is a place of transformation and layers: buildings with history, former uses, and yet older presences as well. Before the railroad cut the “prairie line” across this stretch of land, other lines coursed this way: the paths of creeks, streams and rivers leading to Puget Sound, footpaths and game trails. The Puyallup River, our local river, is the original line and continues as life-line. Its name is also the name of the original people of this place and the Tribal sponsor of UWT.
“More than half of Tacoma’s residents were immigrants by the early 1900s.” (from Historic Assessment of the Prairie Line Trail, p.34) These immigrants came from all over the world and many worked in the buildings that now house the university. Now, students, faculty and staff continue to come from many places all over the world to be part of this community.
“All the Rivers in the World, Tacoma” is a public art project that includes a series of “river gathering” community workshops at UW-Tacoma, and will culminate in a work of permanent public art on campus.
Many of the ideas for All the Rivers in the World, Tacoma, grew out of conversations and collaborations between Vaughn Bell and Antonio José García Cano. Vaughn and Antonio continue to collaborate on the trans-disciplinary pedagogic project WATERshed.
This work also builds on Vaughn's previous work, Sediment Stones/River Rocks, a collaboration with City Meditation Crew for Duwamish Revealed and Jack Straw Cultural Center.
