Settlement

Site: John Boulware Park, Palo Alto, CA

Artists: Jeanine Centuori and Russell Rock

Client: Public Art Commission, Palo Alto

Settlement references the actions of making one’s home as well as the shifting movement that occurs in the act of settling.  The Ventura Neighborhood is a unique settlement in Palo Alto, a place of diversity and openness where many found their home.  It is also an eclectic artistic environment with dynamic change. Settlement refers to both the quiet settling into home and the dynamics that occur in the process.

Settlement is an interactive sculptural form that provides casual seating within its wrapped shape.  A continuous ribbon-like strip forms itself loosely into a house shape that presents different profiles from various view angles.  This sense of forming, becoming, and building references the Ventura Neighborhood as a dynamic place of openness and change.  Its contours are poised between resilience and strength, qualities that are essential to the Ventura Neighborhood.

Two colored metal strips follow the form and are engraved with words harkening to both the past and present qualities of the neighborhood. One sequence of words references the Cannery and related histories; the other references qualities of the community such as interactive, lively, friendly, creative.   These terms were determined in collaboration with the neighborhood.