New artwork at Town Center Park

Residents may notice some of the artwork at Town Center Park changing as the one-year loan program comes full circle and some work leaves while new work arrives. For the next year the park will have John Zylstra’s “Tsunami Memorial” and Ken Turner’s “Dancer.”

Tsunami Memorial by John Zylstra
Photo courtesy City of Shoreline

“Tsunami Memorial” commemorates the Fukushima Nuclear Accident, triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Inspired by the remnant structures left behind by the disaster, Zylstra created a towering, lantern-like artwork with windows reminiscent of shoji screens.

In keeping with the battered and eroded surfaces of surviving buildings, he also gave the sculpture a weathered look, complete with rust patina and industrially battered pendulum in the middle, which also functions as a bell (a wooden mallet is attached to one of the legs). A solar element is designed to make it glow with light at night.

Dancer by Ken Turner
Photo courtesy City of Shoreline

Turner’s “Dancer” evokes a sense of stop-motion photography with its series of outlines that seem to capture the spirit of a dancer in motion, dress swinging out to one side. Whimsical and playful, with shiny stainless steel, the “Dancer” offers a contrast to “Tsunami Memorial” and helps create a range of scale and style at Shoreline’s Town Center Park.

Town Center Park is on the Interurban Trail in front of City Hall, between Aurora and Midvale from 175th to 185th.