Temporal Terminus / Prairie Line Trail Public Art Master Plan
The Prairie Line railway was the western terminus for the Northern Pacific Railroad, one of the major transcontinental routes built more than 150 years ago. When the City of Tacoma was preparing to transform the corridor into a walking and biking trail, it hired Bressi and collaborating artists Thoughbarn to develop a plan for public art.
The outcome, both a plan and a temporary public art exhibition, explores the Prairie Line Trail’s unique interaction of history, geography and place, particularly through opportunities for artworks integrated with the trail’s infrastructure and public realm.
Date | 2012
Client | Tacoma Arts Commission
Collaborators | Thoughtbarn
Bressi and the Austin-based artist collaborative Thoughtbarn were retained by the City of Tacoma to create a conceptual plan for public art along a trail that was moving from an inspirational idea into a full-fledged design and planning process. Part of the alignment would be developed by the City, and part by the University of Washington, whose campus the trail passes through.
The trail would follow the alignment of the historic Prairie Line, the western terminus of one of the first transcontinental railroads in the U.S. The trail passes through a transitioning industrial area, through a university campus, past cultural institutions, and terminates in the residential section of a redeveloping waterfront.
Bressi and Thoughtbarn spent time learning about the context for the project — the unique history of the railroad and the port of Tacoma, the regional landscape and local environmental conditions, the plans of the university and other local institutions, and the interests of the local art community. We prepared a menu of public art options that could be implemented while the trail was being planned, as elements integrated into the trail design, and as special “overlay” projects that could be organized later by the City’s Arts Commission or the Tacoma Art Museum, which fronts on the trail.
We took half our planning fee and used it to create a temporary artwork, Ghost Prairie, which Thoughtbarn designed and then built on site with Tacoma high school students. The City’s Arts Commission then funded an exhibition, Temporal Terminus, curated by Elizabeth Connor, of temporary projects that helped mark the route of the future trail and asked people to reflect on what the experience of the place might be.
