Jacobs Center for Innovation - San Diego Public Art
National Endowment For the Arts Grant -
San Diego, CA
Laser Cut Corten Steel with Choreographed LED Lighting
8’H x 10’D
2019
The Our Town Chollas Creek Public Art Project is a collaboration between the artist Deedee Morrison, the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to improve the environment, economy and quality of life for residents in the Chollas Creek Watershed through new approaches to community and educational development. Visualize Biodiversity asserts that health is a human right, and that social justice could not be achieved without environmental justice. Equality and fairness require that no group of people should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial or governmental policies. Whether by conscious design or institutional neglect, communities of color and areas of urban poverty face some of the worst environmental devastation in our country.
In the last 50 years Chollas Creek began to change rapidly with ever increasing loss of habitat and biodiversity. The creek lost most of its natural geographic features due to freeways and other urban development that left Chollas Creek and the surrounding neighborhoods, barely recognizable. San Diego county is most biologically rich county in the continental U.S. - and the most threatened (approximately 200 imperiled plants and animals—more than in any other county in the nation), California has lost 95 percent of its riparian habitat since pre-settlement times.
The initiative for the Chollas Creek Enhancement Program is to take Chollas Creek from a hidden and neglected waterway into a linear urban park; becoming an historic, geographic, symbolic and civic focal point that communicates the message of the park: habitat restoration, creek sustainability and interactivity/connectivity with the audience. The shape of the sculpture is inspired by several populations of Coastal or San Diego Barrel Cactus (Fetocactus viridesious), a California native that is known to occur along the slopes of the Chollas Creek. Ecological interpretation and education are important along urban rivers because so many natural systems and references have been erased. The river’s history and function may not be obvious to the public. An informed public that understands river ecology as well as the potential for regeneration will support efforts to improve and protect our rivers now and in the future.
Community engagement included neighborhood-driven stewardship classes teaching planting workshops with Master Gardeners and native plants to attract regional pollinators back into the area. The creek restoration project and public art initiatives created a safer passageway for students in the neighborhood walking to Horton Elementary School.
Visualize Biodiversity supports and encourages efforts to understand and preserve the natural resources for the improvement of the Southeastern neighborhoods of San Diego. Biodiversity, or “biological diversity,” refers to the variety of plants, animals, and other living things in a particular area or region. Visual Biodiversity’s shape is inspired by several populations of Coastal Cactus (Ferocactus viridescens), a California Native Plant Society (CNPS) is a protected species and is known to occur along the slopes of the Encanto Branch and Chollas Creek. The initiative for the Chollas Creek Enhancement Program is to take Chollas Creek from a hidden and neglected waterway and transform it into a linear urban park: becoming a historic, geographic, symbolic, and civic focal point.