SONG/LAND/SEA by interdisciplinary artist Lani Asunción is a public art installation and performance series that responds to the unequal impacts of climate change and global warming on Boston’s own coastline. Engaging with environmental racism as well as reminding us of ways of collective and resilient survivance, SONG/LAND/SEA serves as a warning of environmental change that echoes amidst the accelerating climate crisis.

To explore these issues, Asunción created a two-part installation: WAI Water Clock, a free-standing sculpture made of cement, brass, sailors’ rope, and steel, and Binakol Blessing Banners + Flags, a series of digital images developed by the artist and printed onto 4 large-scale fabric flags and twelve 15-foot tall vinyl banners. 

Connecting these works is the central concept of WAI, which translates to ‘water’ in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiʻian language). Foundational to Hawaiian culture, wai sits at the root of many words associated with value and importance, such as waiwai, which means both ‘wealth’ and ‘life force.’ Asunción calls our attention to wai as a warning, a healing blessing, and as a call to action toward the changes brought by the climate crisis. 

WAI Water Clock is an 8-foot tall sculpture featuring a suspended cement vessel, brass bell, sailors’ rope, and an etched brass bowl. This design echoes water clocks, a time-keeping technology used by humans for thousands of years to measure time based on the flow and filling of water within a specific-sized vessel. At its center, the vessel in WAI Water Clock cradles a nautical bell engraved with the word wai, forming a monumental water drop—a symbol of lamentation for the futures at stake and of Boston’s coastline returning to the sea. 

Directly below the bell lies a handcrafted brass bowl, lined with a message in binary code that reminds us of these cycles of return: All that is solid melts into air. As rainfall flows through the vessel and fills the bowl, the collected water marks Boston’s flooding coastline and the passage of time by reaching etched numeric hexagrams from the I-Ching, a Chinese divination text. Each hexagram symbolizes a time-based milestone in years –5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 100, 160, 250, 340, 400, 500– from which viewers can imagine forecasted sea levels along Boston’s vulnerable coastal areas.

In response to these futures, visitors to the artwork can use the knotted sailors’ rope to ring the bell at the center of WAI Water Clock. By doing so, they simultaneously sound an alarm for climate change as well as issue a sonic wish and blessing that echoes throughout The Greenway: a call to confront our environmental realities through collective action toward resilience and environmental justice. 

To create the Binakol Blessing flags, Asunción reworked US military camouflage patterns, layering them with traditional Ilocano woven binakol designs from the Philippines. On the adjacent vinyl banners, images of waves from the artist’s home state of Hawaii are overlaid with indigo-dyed knotted sailors’ rope and a map of downtown Boston that depicts sea-level rise predictions for the year 2070, encircled by messages in binary code and hexagrams from the I-Ching, a Chinese divination text. These designs embody the immensity of the ocean and offer protection against malevolent forces, motioning toward the military-industrial complex and high-tech industries, whose contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and extractive practices continue to propel the climate crisis forward.

As our earth undergoes rapid transformation, SONG/LAND/SEA: WAI Water Warning and Binakol Blessing stands as a stark reminder of the profound shifts reshaping Boston’s coastline and the ground right beneath our feet. 

We are especially grateful to the master craftspeople, artists, and designers across New England who collaborated with the artist and The Greenway to conceptualize, fabricate, build, and install this sculpture: Lunaform (Sullivan, ME), US Bells  (Prospect Harbor, ME), Marlinspike Chandlery (ME), American Metal Spinning Products (NY), Sitira Design (Spencer, MA), Plymouth Quarries (Hingham, MA), Shane Signs (Somerville, MA), Lucia Pearl Jewelry (Providence, RI), and Voilà Inc. (Providence, RI).