Letters from the Lake is an experiential, 3-mile immersive installation located within the Crabtree Creek Watershed of Raleigh, NC. Twenty stainless, origami-inspired “ghost” animal forms inhabit the wooded and marshy areas adjacent to the walking trail at Lake Lynn — a well-loved artificial lake and nature-rich city park. The sculptures are the direct outcome of a project guided by community engagement, participation, and perspective – ultimately working as an occupiable ecological master plan and scavenger hunt.

AN "ENGAGED" PROCESS
The project’s engagement strategy centered around a letter-writing campaign that invited the community to become pen-pals with “the lake” (a local poet), sharing memories, wishes, secrets, and questions. This was designed to encourage visitors to reflect and imagine a deeply familiar place in entirely new ways. These resulting conversations led to various community co-creation events, further informing the creative process.

These engagement sessions would ultimately result in a project that leverages sculpture as both wayfinding and storytelling devices - playfully yet intently speaking to the codependent ecologies of the surrounding city and the wildlife that has emerged since the lake was built in the mid-1970s.

PROTECTING/PROMOTING WONDER
Lake Lynn is now home to an incredible tapestry of wildlife, however rapid urbanization and habitat loss are straining their populations. Letters from the Lake works as an ever-present reminder of the fragility of ecosystems while also highlighting the complex relationships that humans have with the wider natural world.

The folded steel animal forms serve as artful replies to the community’s reflections and wishes. They represent creatures that reside nearby, reimagined as sentinels/guardians of the lake. Their reflective chrome finish evokes ideas of (and questions about) the real and unreal, natural and human-made, past and present, and the visible and invisible – all while promoting advocacy and encouraging participation within this much-needed dialogue.

PROJECT TEAM
Lead Artist, Designer and General Contractor – A Gang of Three
Community Engagement – Nick Neptune
Fabricator and Design Development Consultant – McConnell Studios
Poet – Chris Vitiello (The Poetry Fox)

CLIENT
City of Raleigh
Raleigh Arts
Raleigh Parks

MEDIA CREDITS
Principal Photography – Keith Isaacs
Additional images – A Gang of Three
Text – A Gang of Three