Beachfront Potential is a public art project that filters the relationships between sustainability, aesthetics, and leisure time by playfully reimagining familiar beach vernaculars as portents of sea-level rise – in the heart of an urban community.
For several months in the summer and fall of 2014, a series of custom-built lifeguard chairs were placed in key locations in Ballston, along the line of a hypothetical beach predicted by an online visualization of projected sea-level rise. Passersby’s are invited to sit, relax, and ponder this hypothetical future through virtual engagement that can be accessed at each site.
As digitally envisioned, this new edge of the Atlantic Ocean will create a line that runs through the heart of Ballston. Participants who visit each set of chairs will be invited to interface with geo-location enabled content specific to each site – ranging from pedagogical texts to interviews and footage from scientists and research environments to a web-based game featuring a nostalgic water side pastime.
By situating participants as the lifeguards of this Beachfront Potential, albeit temporarily, this intervention uses the language of leisure and an oscillation between the physical and the digital to present questions of agency, watchfulness, responsibility, and escapism.
Interact with Beachfront Potential »
The Ballston BID thanks the Nature Conservancy for hosting this project, which is presented as part of the Public Displays of Innovation exhibition, and is not part of any Nature Conservancy program. The concept for the project, and the content, were developed solely by the artist and do not reflect any programs or positions of the Nature Conservancy.
Meet the Artist
Patrick McDonough, is an artist and educator living and working in Washington DC. His work has been shown in numerous solo, group and public exhibitions at institutions such as Socrates Sculpture Park, MASSMoCA, the Hyde Park Art Center, G Fine Art, and in collaboration with such institutions as the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities, Maryland Institute College of Art and ARCH Development Corporation. Recent project highlights include his debut solo museum exhibition, ‘brightveridiansentinelevents’ at the American University Art Museum, and public space initiatives in Miami, FL (The Sun and Shade Project) and Brentwood, MD (Catalog Brewing, in collaboration with Kenny George).
Technical Information
Materials: Wood Lifeguard Beach Chairs, mobile app
Dates: August 2014-November 2014
Location: Nature Conservancy, Welburn Square, Wilson/Glebe Intersection
Partners: Piedmont Office Realty Trust, Nature Conservancy, Monument Realty