My Role

Listening Stones is the first artwork to be specifically commissioned to address climate change and sea level rise. Fittingly, this project will be integrated into the SFPUC’s Ocean Beach Sea Level Rise Adaptation Project.

For Listening Stones I built executive and project-team alignment, participated in artist selection, worked with the artist to establish site and project context, and provided creative review and approval throughout the development of the artwork.

The Artwork

Listening Stones by Mark Baugh-Sasaki will consist of eleven carved granite boulders representing the reservoirs that are a part of the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct and will be distributed throughout the main plaza area. They will be installed to appear as if they are part of the site. Seven of the boulders will have a cone cut through the rock pointing in different directions: south, down the coast to north, down the Great Highway, and at various angles to the west to capture both the built and natural environments. The cones will collect and amplify the ambient sounds of the space and enable participants to use the boulders as listening devices to hear what the landscape is saying.

Project Team

• Artwork Client Representative: Blair Randall, SFPUC

• Artwork Project Manager: Arianne Davidian, SF Arts Commission

• Capital Project Manager: Anna Roche, SFPUC