SALT LAKE CITY — What has been called a reimagining of the popular Seven Canyons Fountain in Salt Lake City's Liberty Park was unveiled Thursday, nearly eight years after the water stopped flowing.
The Seven Canyon Refuge is a new public art space that encourages visitors to experience the intersection of art and nature.
“Water is life, water is restorative, water is what we’re made of,” said Stephen Goldsmith, one of the original artists of the Seven Canyons Fountain, who returned to work on the new refuge.
The interactive art feature uses multiple elements, including light and sound, to create what the city says is a "multisensory experience." A big focus of the redesign was to make sure there are meaningful interactions for people of all ages and abilities.
"It’s rare to see a piece of public art evolve with its community the way Seven Canyons has,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. “This shows what’s possible when we honor the past but keep creating for the future.”
Five key themes are featured in the space: the water systems of the Bonneville Basin, the region's First Peoples and early human imprints, relationships with sister species, stewardship and healing of meaningful places, and expanded access to multi-sensory experiences.
"Reimagining this piece in response to new environmental realities was both a challenge and a privilege and illustrates that site-specific artworks, like cities themselves, can and do evolve with the world around them,” said Felicia Baca, executive director of the Salt Lake City Arts Council.
The original fountain was donated to the city in 1993 by O.C. Tanner, but was turned off in 2017 due to the presence of water-borne pathogens.
The new art space was funded by $857,968 from the Capital Improvement Program in 2020.