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Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall joined community members today to celebrate the grand opening of Liberty Park’s Seven Canyon Refuge (formerly Seven Canyons Fountain), a reimagined public art space that encourages visitors to experience the intersection of art and nature.

Originally donated to the residents of Salt Lake City by O.C. Tanner in 1993, the Seven Canyons Fountain was a well-known feature of Liberty Park for years. Unfortunately, the water to the fountain was turned off in 2017 for health and safety concerns, but it is back with a new vision.

The reimagined space, the Seven Canyons Refuge, is a dry, interactive art feature using light, sound, and sculptural elements to create a multisensory experience. With a focus on accessibility, the space invites meaningful interactions for people of all ages and abilities.  

Stephen Goldsmith, one of the original artists of the Seven Canyons Fountain, returned to create the space in collaboration with the landscape architecture firm ArcSitio, working alongside Salt Lake City Department of Public Lands, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, and the City’s Engineering Division.

“It’s rare to see a piece of public art evolve with its community the way Seven Canyons has,” said Mayor Mendenhall. “This shows what’s possible when we honor the past but keep creating for the future.”

The installation presents new works that blend sculpture, ecology, and sensory engagement. People Perches–cast bronze sculptures–invite visitors to explore birdsong through touch and sound, featuring Braille and sonogram elements that promote inclusivity. Cast bronze repairs, inspired by kintsugi–the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery–evoke resilience and healing, while shishi-odoshi, Japanese rocking water fountains, encourage hands-on water stewardship. A depiction of Salt Lake City’s historic streetcar lines connects transportation history to regional hydrology, and etched granite tiles featuring Indigenous imagery honor the area’s First Peoples. A reimagined Great Salt Lake spiral completes the installation, uniting play, learning, and environmental awareness.

Amongst the many elements of the Seven Canyons Refuge, five key themes emerge–water systems of the Bonneville Basin, the region’s First Peoples and early human imprints, relationships with sister species, stewardship and healing of meaningful places, and expanded access to multi-sensory experiences.

 “Reimagining this piece in response to new environmental realities was both a challenge and a privilege and illustrates that site-specific artworks, like cities themselves, can and do evolve with the world around them,” said Felicia Baca, executive director of the Salt Lake City Arts Council. “I’m thrilled that we were able to collaborate with Stephen Goldsmith to achieve this so that future generations can continue to adore and cherish this work. The Seven Canyons Refuge reflects the region’s ecology and celebrates environmental stewardship.”

Educating the public on the essential role of water in the seven canyons that feed into the Great Salt Lake was a main goal for Goldsmith. He hopes the next chapter for this space will inspire future generations to be more mindful about water usage and the way they connect with the environment and each other.

“Water is life, water is restorative, water is what we’re made of,” said Goldsmith.  

The new art space was funded by $857,968 from the Capital Improvement Program in 2020. 

For more information on the history of this project, visit the project’s website, https://www.slc.gov/parks/projects/scf/.