From modern-day news articles to ancient Indigenous legends, the Duwamish River looms large in the life and stories of our region. Its physical wellbeing has huge impacts on our water and ecosystem, and its history continues to resonate throughout local culture. Now two new public art projects are taking shape around this enduring legacy, joining 4Culture’s ever-growing collection of water-centric artworks.

In 2018, King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) completed a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project in the Rainier Valley that keeps sewage and stormwater out of the Duwamish River with new and larger pipes and an overflow storage tank. Now a new art project is in the works at the site, created by AREA C Projects, a Rhode Island-based public art practice consisting of artists Erik Carlson and Erica Carpenter.

Known as the Rainier Valley Wet Weather Station, located near the Mount Baker light rail station, the site will become home to Waterlog, a text-based artwork featuring dozens of phrases about water in English, Spanish, Somali, Russian, and Chinese. Pulled by AREA C from local Seattle newspapers and remixed into an evocative story about the flow of water, the phrases (cut from aluminum) will surround the site like news scrolling across the bottom of a TV screen, its themes rising to the surface and submerging again—always fluid, elusive, and reflective, like water itself.

Waterlog aims to connect with the ways that water shapes life in Seattle, whether flowing into and out of household faucets, rivers, weather systems, rain gutters, tides and pipes below the ground. Its name taps into multiple meanings: It is both an account of water, in the spirit of a maritime log that records daily weather and the news of the day, and the experience of saturation or feeling utterly immersed, as humans are in water. (Not only does it define much our region and our lives, our bodies are also 60% water.) Waterlog is expected to be complete in summer 2025.

Not far from the Rainier Valley Wet Weather Station, Seattle artist Timothy White Eagle is also creating a new CSO artwork anchored in the history and natural environment of the Duwamish River. The Path of Water will be an auditory experience meant to accompany a visit to the river itself. White Eagle is currently creating three different soundtracks that will be accessible via QR codes posted near the river in locations that have yet to be determined.

To counter the industrial noise pollution in the Duwamish River Valley, each track will feature a soundscape aimed at connecting visitors more deeply to the place and environment.  Amplified natural sounds will invoke the journey of water all the way from rainfall at the Green River Headwaters through the river system to the Salish Sea. Each track will also feature a different narrative, among them a history of the river narrated by White Eagle himself as well as sounds and stories collected from people with deep roots to the Duwamish Valley. White Eagle is in the early stages of this project now, beginning with outreach to artistic communities, community partners, and the Duwamish Longhouse. Together these soundtracks aim to offer listeners a deep connection to the many histories, personalities, and possibilities of the river and its surroundings. The Path of Water is expected to be completed in 2026.