Lu Heintz’s Pond Lands commemorates the land and the interspecies relational networks that flourished in the waterways surrounding Mashapaug pond. The installation visually reconnects the park to its adjacent lands now separated by roadways and train tracks. The park is less than a thousand feet from the banks of Mashapaug Pond, the largest freshwater body in Providence and part of the Pawtuxet River Watershed leading into the Narragansett bay. The Narragansett people lived among these lands for thousands of years prior to European conquest and some indigenous families have remained into modern times. Mashapaug Pond is the one pond surviving from what was previously an ecosystem of several ponds, known as the pond lands.

At the park, abstracted furniture objects are situated under the canopy of London Plane trees. The trees here provide a beautiful green cover and generous shade in the hotter months. The installation provides seating for individual resting and a circular forum for gathering. The benches and chairs were carved from the remains of an ancient local elm tree that recently passed on nearby Sackett St. The carvings follow the tree’s contours and illuminate the natural grain patterns. With similar intention, the furniture is receptive and supportive to the human body, designed to accommodate embodied needs and interactions. Recesses have been incorporated into the designs which hold plantings reflecting flora from the pond’s edges. The overall effect echoes a forest understory and its cycles of regrowth. While the site is laden with traumatic histories, the past may transmit intergenerational knowledge to nurture healing and promote recovery. The project intends to reconnect the site to its place, and through the land provide a sense of belonging.

Artist, Designer, Fabricator: Lu Heintz
Project Consultant: Keith Yeaw
Lead Chainsaw Operator: John Morra
Installation equipment operator: Jonathan Montalbano
Assistants: Jon Dinetz and An Talatinian