At Socrates Sculpture Park, Rachel Owens has created Groundswell, a piece that both remembers the site's history as a landfill and illegal dumping grounds as well as addresses larger issues of failed cultural conditions, waste and our mysterious underground infrastructure. Massive underground plumbing pipes erupt from beneath the soil and sprout into a tree-like structure whose limbs spout water, creating a fountain that dumps into an oil drum below. Perched dejectedly above is a monumental black rubber raven. Owens received the 2007 Emerging Artist Fellowship from Socrates to realize this project, which was featured as a must see in New York Magazine (September 24, 2007).
Wishing Well was produced in 2007 for the NADA Art Fair in Miami Florida. The piece was conceived of as an extension of Groundswell and was also fabricated at Socrates Sculpture Park. The clean environs of the Art Fair are disrupted by this structure that exists somewhere between oil derrick and light house. Examining issues of the environment, war, and consumption - just outside the tall hedge guarding the fair grounds is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Miami, such that the piece to also takes location into consideration.