Re-Site 2024 | Ling-Wen Tsai – Ahead of Schedule

June 22 – Guided Walking Tour with Ling-Wen Tsai and Seth Goldstein, 11 am–12:30 pm 
Meet at Mill Creek Hannaford parking lot, 50 Cottage Rd, South Portland
Register here, space is limited 
We recommend wearing comfortable walking shoes and bringing a reusable water bottle. The group will meet at the boardwalk behind the Mill Creek Hannaford (50 Cottage Rd, South Portland).

Ling-Wen Tsai’s Ahead of Schedule is a site-specific installation along the Mill Cove salt marsh featuring wooden stakes cut at various heights and painted with environmentally friendly milk paint to visualize the sea-level rise and to draw attention to the importance and vulnerability of the ecosystem that depends on its health. While working with the low point of the open green space, there will be more than 850 stakes to represent each of the different species of marine life that inhabit the Casco Bay Estuary and visualize the changing sea levels and how this has changed over time. Historical touchpoints include the history of Mill Cove and the Grist Mill and Shipyard, and railroad history of this area. 

Ling‐Wen Tsai was born in Tainan, Taiwan. Her practice spans a broad range of mediums and disciplines including: installation, sculpture, performance, video, photography, painting, and drawing. She has collaborated with sound artists, musicians, composers, choreographers, and poets. Tsai is Professor of Sculpture at Maine College of Art and Design (MECA&D.) She holds an M.F.A. in Sculpture from Washington University, a B.A. in Studio Art from Webster University, and a graduate certificate in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). She also holds a B.S. degree from Chung-Shan Medical University in Taiwan. Tsai has exhibited and performed her work nationally and internationally, including at: Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris, France); Siena Art Institute (Siena, Italy); Golden Parachutes (Berlin, Germany); Richmond Art Gallery (British Columbia, Canada); Tainan University of Technology (Tainan, Taiwan); Czong Institute for Contemporary Art (CICA), Gyeonggi-do, Korea; Qasim Sabti Gallery (Baghdad, Iraq); Halim Bey Municipal Art Gallery (Mytilene, Greece); Asian Cultural Center (New York, NY); Goethe-Institute (Boston, MA); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (St. Louis, MO); Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (Grand Rapids, MI); ARC Gallery (Chicago, IL); Bowdoin College Museum of Art (Brunswick, ME); Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Rockport, ME); Portland Museum of Art (Portland, ME); SPEEDWELL Contemporary (Portland, ME).

SPACE is pleased to present Re-Site 2024, the second iteration of the site-specific, temporary public art and Portland history-telling initiative we first launched in 2020. This year’s series features artwork by James Allister Sprang, Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Ashley Page, Rachel Alexandrou, and Ling-Wen Tsai, in collaboration with historians Seth Goldstein and Libby Bischof.

Each of these 5 artists were nominated by the previous group (Asha Tamirisa, Shane Charles, Heather Flor Cron, Veronica A. Pèrez, and Asata Radcliffe) and selected a site within the Greater Portland area to propose a temporary public installation or performance in response to its history. 

During the first iteration in 2020, the idea of Re-Site stemmed from the Maine Bicentennial, quickly becoming more urgent and relevant due to the growing call for change across the intersections of civil rights, climate change, public health, and political process. In the four years since these first activations, we are thrilled to bring these new projects and histories to light in order to broaden our knowledge and awareness of these local histories and understand how their impact has brought us to where we are today, through various artistic lenses. Our hope for Re-Site 2.0 is to further expand and engage upon what we first started, and broaden the artistic possibilities to demonstrate “and generate dialogue about what we want to carry with us into the future.” 

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Re-Site locations, schedules, and details:

Please take note that each site has specific days and interpretations it will be viewable to the public. All sites will feature a Re-Site lawn sign, which will include information to see the full artist statement, site history, photo and video documentation, and a bibliography with further research on key related objects viewable in public collections. Documentation will be regularly updated and archived on the individual project web pages linked below. 

During the first iteration in 2020, the idea of Re-Site stemmed from the Maine Bicentennial, quickly becoming more urgent and relevant due to the growing call for change across the intersections of civil rights, climate change, public health, and political process. In the four years since these first activations, we are thrilled to bring these new projects and histories to light in order to broaden our knowledge and awareness of these local histories and understand how their impact has brought us to where we are today, through various artistic lenses. Our hope for Re-Site 2.0 is to further expand and engage upon what we first started, and broaden the artistic possibilities to demonstrate “and generate dialogue about what we want to carry with us into the future.” 

Re-Site 2024 is made possible with the generous support of the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place initiative.

Site History: Mill Creek

Tidal Mill
The stones that were part of a tidewater mill are still visible from the Mill Creek Hannaford’s parking lot. Seagulls, geese and ducks congregate where the dam previously sat. The dam was located at the end of Mill Creek which has also been known as Lawrence Creek, Meadow Brook, Sawyer Brook and Trout Brook. It is likely that the Wabanaki harvested shellfish such as crabs, clams, oysters, mussels and lobsters in the area. Shellfish would have been particularly important to the Wabanaki diet in winter and early spring when other food sources were difficult to obtain.

The gristmill, built by John Sawyer and Benjamin York, was completed in 1727. A gristmill uses hydraulic power to turn a large stone disc over a stationary stone, thereby grinding grains such as wheat or corn into flour. Since wheat was difficult to grow in Maine, due to the climate, this mill ground corn. Settlers would bring their corn to be ground into corn flour for a fee paid to the mill owner. Sawyer and York also built a sawmill along the creek. The Mill Creek mills were powered by the action of the tide. A dam held the high tide. As the tide was released it drove the mill. Both grist and saw mills severely disturbed Indigenous food ways. The sawmill produced sawdust that ended up in the water and killed both fish and aquatic plants. Gristmills and sawmills kept anadromous fish, fish that swim upstream to reproduce in fresh water, from reaching their spawning grounds. Unable to breed, these fish stocks, such as salmon and herring, died out leading to famine for Indigenous communities.

The dam was remodeled following the Civil War to hold back a larger volume of tidal water. At this time the mill was converted from a gristmill to a mill to manufacture wooden spools. This endeavor faced limited success and in 1868 Charles Oxnard had the mill reconverted into a gristmill. The mill was purchased by Jesse Dyer Jr. in 1874. Jesse Jr., along with business partner Norris Curtis, built a new dam along with an ice house. They would close the dam in the winter thereby flooding the area where Mill Creek Park exists today. The partners, operating under the name “Dyer & Curtis,” could then harvest the resulting ice. On December 21, 1892, the mill caught fire and was completely destroyed.

Mill Creek Park and the Green Belt Walkway
Mill Creek Park was constructed between 1945 and 1955 on the site of the former city dump. The Greenbelt Walkway has been built on an old railroad bed. The track was built from an existing rail line in the Pleasantdale neighborhood to the Liberty ship yards during WWII.

Knightville
Knightville, along with Ferry Village, is one of the oldest areas of settlement in the city that would later be known as South Portland. A drawbridge from Portland to Knightville, known as the Portland Bridge, was completed in 1823. The original toll to cross the bridge was two cents for foot passengers and six cents for an individual with a horse. Since the bridge was the only route from Cape Elizabeth into Portland, aside from the ferry, it quickly became indispensable.

The bridge was frequently damaged by storms, freshets (a river flood resulting from heavy rain or snow melt) and ship collisions. The Portland Bridge was replaced by the Million Dollar Bridge in 1916. The current Casco Bay Bridge replaced the Million Dollar Bridge in 1997. A large shipyard was built in Knightville in 1848 by Thomas E. Knight with funding from Nathaniel Blanchard. Thomas was a master ship builder who learned the craft from his father, Robert W. Knight. The first ship built by the Knight firm was the Ezra F. Lewis. The 182-ton schooner was built for Portland merchant John B. Brown. Launched on May 31, 1851, the vessel conducted voyages between New York and Portland. Despite a devastating fire in 1853 work at the yard continued. Following the fire Knight built the aptly named Phoenix on the site. The Phoenix was launched in February 1854 and was sold to the Red Star Line of New York to serve as a trans-Atlantic packet ship traveling from New York to Liverpool. Knight died in 1868.

In the early 1870s the yard was purchased by Joshua F. Randall who employed master shipbuilder Daniel Brewer at the site. The shipyard ceased business in 1877. Several other shipyards were built in the area including the Doyen Shipyard, located on Mill Cove, which built vessels for the Greek government during WWI.

Resources

Ling-Wen Tsai