Ghost Rivers – Public Mechanics / experiential design, public art, placemaking, creative strategy

A multi-site public art installation rediscovering buried streams and lost histories flowing below the streets of Baltimore.

Ghost Rivers
2020–2024
Powder-coated steel and aluminum signage, preformed thermoplastic, web publication, research, walking tours, community events
Location: Baltimore, MD

A photo of a tall blue interpretive sign, with the form of a river cut out from the bottom of the sign panel. Through the gap in the sign, a bright blue wavy line snakes across the street, with an apartment building in the background.

Ghost Rivers is a 1.5-mile-long permanent public art installation and walking tour that reveals the lost path and history of the buried stream Sumwalt Run, which now flows through underground culverts beneath the Remington and Charles Village neighborhoods. Through a series of permanent installations, wayfinding markers, and writings Ghost Rivers brings hidden landscapes and histories to the surface. Along the way the project draws connections between Baltimore’s watershed, its social history, and the evolving relationships between natural and human environments.

Photo of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream. A bright blue wavy line snakes across a street and sidewalk in a wooded area with train tracks in the background.

Mapmaking on the scale of a city

Ghost Rivers installations add a cartographic overlay to the physical environment, a meandering blue line that traces the lost path of Sumwalt Run across city streets and sidewalks. The pale blue color references the hues of waterways found on vintage maps and unites the Ghost Rivers installations across multiple sites. The form and color stands out among other roadway markings and a visually-crowded streetscape to help visitors follow the project through the neighborhood.

Aerial photo of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream. A bright blue wavy line snakes diagonally across an intersection and sidewalks, dead-ending into the side of a block of Baltimore rowhouses.

Photo of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream onto the pavement, showing a bright blue wavy line snaking across the sidewalk and onto the street. The words Sumwalt Run are imprinted onto the line.

Aerial photo of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream. A bright blue wavy line snakes all the way across a roadway and wide sidewalk.

Detail photo of a bright blue six-inch wide wavy line on the street, intersecting with yellow road-marking lines.

Photo of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream onto the pavement, showing a tall blue interpretive sign, with the form of a river cut out from the bottom of the sign panel. Through the gap in the sign, a bright blue wavy line snakes across the street.

Narrative threads create deeper context

Sculptural interpretive signs feature cut-out river shapes that help visitors “see” the lost creek and a QR code that links viewers to additional digital content, including photos, historic imagery, and action-oriented resources for each site and topic. A project map on the signage, along with an interactive Google Map, help visitors to navigate a self-guided tour of Ghost Rivers installation sites.

Photos of a man with a headlamp and waders standing in an underground tunnel with an arched stone ceiling. Water cascades through the tunnel down a set of steps. — Sumwalt Run today flows through underground culverts below Baltimore.

A photo of a tall blue interpretive sign with the form of a river cut out from the bottom of the sign panel. A large stone building is visible in the background.

Photo of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream onto the pavement, showing a wide sidewalk and street, with a six-inch wide bright blue wavy line snaking all the way across to the grass on the other side. The words Sumwalt Run are imprinted onto the line.

Detail photo of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream. A bright blue wavy line snakes across a sidewalk behind the distinctive shadow of a sculptural interpretive sign.

A man stands on a sidewalk in a residential neighborhood, reading a blue interpretive sign for a public art installation mapping a buried stream in Baltimore. Photo shows a wide sidewalk and street, with a six-inch wide bright blue wavy line snaking across. The words Sumwalt Run are imprinted onto the line.

Encouraging and rewarding exploration

Visitors may first stumble upon only one or two Ghost Rivers installations, and each site’s accompanying narrative is written as a standalone vignette. As viewers visit multiple sites, these narratives link together to illuminate larger themes within our social and natural landscapes.

Photo at sunset of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream. A bright blue wavy line snakes across a street. A tall, bright blue sign stands on the sidewalk with a cut-out river shape visible in the sign panel.

Photo of a public art installation mapping the path of an underground stream. A bright blue wavy line crosses a sidewalk and dead-ends at a building. A dog walker passes by in the background.

Artist Bruce Willen speaks to a group of visitors attending a guided walking tour of the Ghost Rivers public art project that follows the path of a buried creek in Baltimore.

Walking tours

The artist and Blue Water Baltimore have co-led a series of free guided tours of the project that immerse attendees in the past, present, and possible futures of Baltimore’s buried waterways.

An engaging multimedia website and interactive map serve as digital guides for visitors who wish to tour the sites on their own and for people around the world to experience Ghost Rivers virtually.

A group of visitors attending a guided walking tour with Blue Water Baltimore and Bruce Willen as part of the Ghost Rivers public art project that follows the path of a buried creek in Baltimore. — Guided walking tours in 2023. (Photos by Side A Photography)

An extensive community engagement process

During project development, our engagement plan included community history workshops, public presentations, canvassing, in-person conversations, a collaborative chalk art drawing event, and one-on-one interviews that added voices of longtime neighborhood residents to the project. This broad engagement resulted in strong neighborhood support for Ghost Rivers.

We heralded the opening of the first nine sites with a ribbon-cutting and community celebration attended by hundreds of residents and project supporters and highlighted by a puppet procession with the Underground Water Goddess and her attendants.