Louisville’s Ohio River floodwalls get a makeover, paving the way for more art projects across the city

Louisville’s cityscape is getting a facelift, particularly at the 10th Street floodwall and MSD pump station.

The pumping station will also serve as the entrance to Phase IV of Waterfront Park, providing a colorful entry to a completely new area currently in the works.

This initiative, according to the Louisville Public Art Commission, aims to revitalize publicly accessible spaces around Louisville with murals covering flood walls along the Ohio River.

LEO Weekly sat down with Jessica Bennett Kincaid, the project’s founder, to learn more about the floodwall and what Louisville residents can expect from the project, and why it was started in the first place.

Portions of the interview with LEO and Kincaid have been edited for clarity.

LEO: What kind of themes do you intend to address with this initiative?

Kincaid: On the flood wall, we have a bit more of a thematic or conceptual framework that we hope artists will come up with designs for. That corridor, that 10th Street access point, has been the focus of a couple of different cultural activation initiatives over the last 10 years. We also did the Connect/Disconnect temporary public art exhibit at that site in 2016, I believe.

Now, looking at phase four of the waterfront park being developed there and thinking about how it’s actually drawn, showing this connection between both sides of the interstate exit ramp and that floodwall inlet, it’s really going to be the welcoming access point to this intersection space.

We wanted to continue to develop this idea of ​​connection to the natural environment through the coastal connection to recreation and activity within our city through the coastal park space that they are building. I hope that the designs will highlight the connection to civic infrastructure, social infrastructure and in some ways this natural landscape.

LEO: Is there a story behind how you came across this project?

Kincaid: The work to be able to activate our flood walls in this way precedes me. So this has been a conversation that started even before COVID (19), to explore that possibility. When I took on this role, I wanted to revive that conversation and see what could be possible, and the timing was right. So we’re very excited to pursue that opportunity again, and hopefully it will become a full-fledged program.

It can be structured similarly to our creative gateway program, where Metro creates a workflow and a process and helps direct and navigate the project. There are a lot of different civic organizations and regulatory bodies involved in producing a project like this. And it’s not that intuitive for even the most capable and experienced mural artists. But we will create the pathway and the goal is to make this space accessible to the community for creative expression.

LEO: How does it feel to know that so much art will adorn this open mural?

Kincaid: It’s really exciting. I think Louisville has a very unique identity in terms of creative expression. I think a couple of people have asked me, “Oh, is the goal to replicate things that you’ve seen in this city or that city?” And the answer is no, we want to do something that’s our own. We want it to be something that’s unique to Louisville. And obviously it’s not so unique as to do a mural on a flood wall, as I mentioned, there are murals on flood walls all over the country and other cities have strong mural programs in their own right. So in that sense, there’s common ground.

But the great thing about public art is that it’s very, very successful. Public art is site-specific, so we’re trying to understand what that means for Louisville. This is just the beginning of a lot of different types of public art that we could see emerging in our community, beyond murals and some different types of art forms that are currently represented in our city. So it’s really exciting to think about that.

LEO: What kind of opportunities does this provide for local artists in Louisville?

Kincaid: This mural is the largest canvas that has ever been done. It’s probably the largest public art project that we’ve seen to date in our city. And it was important to my office and the Public Art Commission to make sure that this opportunity was centered around Kentucky artists, because again, it’s about remembering that site-specific piece of public art and how it’s really centered or anchored in what’s going to be a great community asset. We wanted to make sure that it was produced by an artist or a team of artists who had a sense of community and a connection to it, and that it authentically reflected the identity of our place.

The deadline to submit applications for the flood wall mural project is September 1.