Janet Knott

The ICA Watershed in East Boston

by Janet Knott

When the ICA hopped across Boston Harbor to East Boston, neighborhood residents and museum goers knew they would be in for a treat. A condemned 15,000 square foot former copper pipe factory was reimagined, and in 2018 it became a summertime site for large scale art. This summer the work of Lucy Raven explores how technological, industrial, and economic forces shape landscapes and the environment through “Hardpan,” a kinetic light sculpture, and “Murderers Bar,” a color video projected on a plywood screen with an aluminum seating structure.

The ICA Watershed facade in the Boston Harbor Shipyard, East Boston, with a colorful sea mural and a giant fish sculpture on the roof.
Old rail tracks embedded in the concrete floor of the ICA Watershed, a former copper pipe factory, leading toward the entrance.
A rusted chain hoist and steel beams from the building's factory days inside the ICA Watershed.
Lucy Raven's Hardpan, an aluminum and concrete cylinder glowing from within at the ICA Watershed.
Light from Lucy Raven's kinetic sculpture Hardpan sweeping across a curved gray wall at the ICA Watershed.
A silhouetted figure walking between Hardpan's aluminum cylinder and a glowing wall at the ICA Watershed.
Lucy Raven's video Murderers Bar, showing a green river below rocky bluffs, on a freestanding screen at the ICA Watershed.
A close view of Lucy Raven's Murderers Bar at the ICA Watershed: water rushing from a pipe into a churning pool.
A gallery attendant watches Lucy Raven's Murderers Bar from the edge of the screen at the ICA Watershed.
A smiling gallery attendant in front of a raw concrete block wall at the ICA Watershed in East Boston.