The Salt Lake City Arts Council’s Public Art Program is proud to announce the recent installation of Jordan River Current, a large-scale public art installation on the Jordan River. Santa Fe, NM-based Colette Hosmer created a total of 25 eight-foot tall steel trout sculptures as part of this multi-site project aimed at connecting recreational users of this natural tributary with their environment.
River enthusiasts will encounter the artwork at four different boat ramps, spanning 7.2 miles along the Jordan River Trail. Across all four sites, one fish is painted in a different color than the rest—green, blue, red, and white—visually linking all locations across the river and functioning as a wayfinding element and marking for each ramp. From north to south, the location of these installations are:
- Riverview Trailhead (1835 North Redwood Road) contains 11 sculptures;
- Gadsby Trailhead (1223 West North Temple) contains 6 sculptures;
- Fisher Mansion (1206 West 200 South) contains 3 sculptures;
- Glendale Park (1700 South and approximately 1100 West) contains 5 sculptures;
Colette Hosmer’s site-specific art installations seek to “transform the environment into an experience” and “surround viewers as they engage with the work.” Hosmer is a contemporary naturalist who is celebrated for her monumental outdoor sculptures and site-specific work utilizing organic materials. “My long art career has evolved to include large-scale, environmental installations,” says Hosmer. “I have placed a half-dozen, site-specific works across the world that have been created to exist with bodies of water. And now, Salt Lake City has given me the rare opportunity to work with a major tributary—the historic Jordan River.”
The artist team and the Salt Lake City Arts Council established a partnership with Edison Elementary School in Poplar Grove for this commission. The school’s 4th grade students created their own science-informed artworks in commemoration of this commission, inspired by the sculptures and the ecology of the Jordan River. The students were also involved in naming all four colored fish within this installation: Finny (red fish at Riverview), BiggieCheese (white fish at Gadsby), Decrayvion (green fish at Fisher), and BeanCheleen (blue fish at Glendale).
The Jordan River, home of this impressive artwork, continues to be the ecological, environmental, and recreational heart of the West Side of Salt Lake City. These sculptures, Hosmer states, “will point the way to a balanced river ecology.”
