The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is the geographic manifestation of a sounding board for people of multiple faiths. My understanding of the Wall growing up was that anyone needing to communicate with the ultimate authority could write their prayers on paper and insert them between the wall’s massive stone blocks. This action represents a catharsis only fully understood by the one writing the notes and the wall itself.

Displacement due to sea level rise is a phenomenon that is already being experienced in places across the globe, and Warren, Rhode Island, is not immune to future damage. By 2100, most of Market St, one of the town’s main thoroughfares, will experience between nine and twelve feet of flooding at high tide according to the town’s “Market to Metacom” plan. These data, however, are not universally understood, which invites the creation of a teaching moment and a space for grappling with communal emotions as an individual as well as individual emotions as a community.

My installation, designed during RISD’s Fall 2022 studio “Darkness as a Medium of Vision”, fosters intimate emotionality in public space. Located in a vacant store’s window display is a scale model of the town–flooded to match the most recent sea-level rise projections–that invites passers-by to process their thoughts and emotions when confronted with the realities of the near future. Adjacent to the window, flowing into the street, is a reflection space abutted by a sandbag wall, the most visible single aspect of the installation. Similar walls are often built as an emergency flood mitigation method right before the onset of disaster. By pairing the projected flooding information with the uncertainty and discomfort of fighting a losing war against nature, guests are encouraged to record their thoughts, hopes, fears, prayers, or predictions for the future and slip them between the sandbag “blocks” of Warren’s Wailing Wall.

Sectional view of the relationship between the storefront window and sandbag installations.

Mock-up sketch of the storefront window materials.

Scale model of Warren accompanied by a description of the installation.

How visitors engage with the focal point of the installation, the sandbag wall.