Raleigh Rambles

Bain Page

The Bain  Project was over a dozen artists creating an installation in an abandoned but historic structure in south Raleigh.  The 10 posts below follow the project.

Bain Post 1– introduction

Bain Post 2 – Music Fundraiser

Bain Post 3– Preview Show

Bain post 4 – Day 1 Photos

Bain post 5 – Bain Image Poem by JDJ

 Bain post 6 – Bain Performance Videos

Bain post 7 – Bain Water Permits

Bain post 8 – Favorite Bain Rooms

Bain post 9 – Music and Media (reference links)

Bain post 10 – Bain Review

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post-project links

Indy Review by Bob Geary

Jen Coon’s atelier

Stacey Kirby

Marty Baird

Sarah Powers

Natasha Johnson video

G Currin at the Indy

YUXTAPONGO

EPISODE 8 – including Lincoln Hancock’s fantasy of Raleigh’s Bain Waterworks featuring a new studio recording by Starmount

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Below is my Bain Page as it existed during the project.

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Bain Water Project homepage

Stacey Kirby’s blog

Daniel Kelly’s Bain work

New Raleigh Bain essay

     The Bain water treatment plant is one of  Raleigh’s most interesting public buildings but has been neglected for years.  A selected group of artists is developing a site specific installation that will “implement a cohesive vision of the space.”  An installation is planned for May 2009 and the facility, which is a historic landmark, will then begin rehabilitation for mixed use development.

Organizers intend that through the process of creating these responsive pieces in Bain, artists can contribute to an understanding of the issues involved in navigating the thresholds that emerge in the creation and sustaining of public structures.

     This fascinating project has many many aspects – the individual as well as group responses of the artists will be presented through the installation but is already emerging through their photo archives, blogs, and displayed artwork.  The history of the building and its use involve issues of architecture and preservation but also water, geography, and the history of Raleigh’s water technologies.  This evolving page will attempt to gather some of all that and also reflect my experience of the project as Raleigh native, arts writer, and ecologist.

Photos of my first tour

    My favorite part of all this so far is just the intimate contact with such a fundamental technology.  Above is a set of gradations from the rock material used to filter water at Bain.  The ball is unpolished porcelain.  Many thousands of these balls and the smaller rocks, down to sand grains, were used to filter solid material from the water.  The rock material lay at the bottom of huge filter tanks which were filled and drained as the water was treated.  The process at Bain was wonderfully and almost completely mechanical and gravity-driven.

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     There will be a public opening for the installation.  Check back for updates and reflections on the Bain Water Project and its setting.

February news from the Bain homepage:

The Bain Project is a site specific installation taking place in Raleigh’s historic E.B. Bain Waterworks on Fayetteville St, just south of downtown.  12 artists will present work throughout the building that represents their interactions with the space over the past 9 months.

Bain will be open to the public on the following dates in May

Weekend 1 – May  9th, 10th

Weekend 2 – May  16th,17th

hours: 1-5pm