1177 - A Song For Water by Ann Hamilton
Welcome to Peace Plaza in downtown Rochester, a space where words flow like water and the ground beneath your feet becomes a living poem.
Stretching over 250 feet, Ann Hamilton’s A Song for Water transforms granite pavers into a textured field of language. Etched in stone, these raised words and phrases don’t tell a single story, instead, they invite you to wander, reflect, and compose your own meaning. The installation weaves together the natural and the cultural, the ancient and the contemporary, forming a powerful connection between the land, language, and memory.
At its heart runs a vertical spine of words from Dr. Gwen Weterman, Dakota historian, poet, and enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate. Her poem, De Wakpa Tanka Odowan, Song for the Mississippi River, anchors the piece in Dakota heritage and reminds us that this place, long before it was a plaza, was and remains Dakota land.
“In the beginning,
De Dakota Makoce
This was a Dakota place.
The water was pure.
The water was wakaŋ.
Sacred.
mni
pejuta tokaheya heca.
Water was,
Water is,
our first medicine.”
These words guide composition, creating tributaries of text that intersect and echo across the plaza. Like the Mississippi River flowing from its headwaters to the ocean, the language moves through themes of origin, cycles, and renewal.
The piece is dynamic. A shallow scrim pool periodically fills and flows over the carved text. First, water outlines the letters, then covers them completely—words disappearing under a mirror-like surface. As the pool drains, words reemerge, and the sun sketches ephemeral patterns of light, shade, and evaporation across the stone.
The text is oriented west to east, like a river's current, but the experience is entirely up to you. As you walk, you become the storyteller.
A Song for Water is more than public art–it’s an invitation to connect: with history, with land, and with each other. It reminds us that water, like history, sustains us. And in this place, both run deep.