Houston Cistern’s 100th Anniversary Year Kicks Off with Interactive Work by Renowned Artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer on April 24, 2026
Buffalo Bayou Partnership Celebrates Cistern’s 100th Anniversary and 10-Year Mark as Houston’s Beloved Public Art Venue with Major Art Installation
The architectural wonder that is the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern enters its centennial anniversary with a major interactive public art project from world-renowned multi-media artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, opening Saturday, April 24 and kickstarts a calendar of special events and activations celebrating one of Houston’s most magical public spaces.
“Undercurrents” will mesmerize visitors through 2026 – a pivotal year for the fabled Cistern – and conclude Jan. 24, 2027.
An audience-involved “audiovisual forum,” the installation will fill the cavernous space with light, poetry, and interactive sound. This ever-evolving, site-specific public artwork is an original commission of Buffalo Bayou Partnership for the Cistern.
“As our first truly interactive installation in the Cistern, ‘Undercurrents’ offers visitors not only something to behold, but something to become a part of,” said BBP’s Vice President of External Affairs, Karen Farber. “It is such an honor to witness Rafael’s inventive studio responding to the unique conditions of the Cistern and we can’t wait for audiences see – and hear – the space through this new artwork.”
Lozano-Hemmer’s technically ambitious work sets a tone appropriate for the Cistern’s milestone year. The 87,500-square-foot underground structure was built in 1926 as a drinking water reservoir for the City of Houston. The vast space is anchored by 221, 25-foot concrete columns, reminiscent of the ancient Roman cisterns in Istanbul. It was decommissioned in 2007 and abandoned until the transformation of the 160-acre Buffalo Bayou Park.
Buffalo Bayou Partnership, the non-profit organization dedicated to the stewardship of the Buffalo Bayou waterway, repaired and repurposed the infrastructural relic, opening it in May 2016 as a park attraction for tours and public art installations.
Lozano-Hemmer, the Montreal artist whose work explores the intersection of architecture and performance art, has created a multi-sensory piece that makes full use of the Cistern’s physical angles and acoustic capabilities.
The installation calls for a mile’s worth of LED lighting suspended in a web-like grid just above the entire reflective surface of the Cistern’s waterline. Random patterns of light (acting as a visual “switchboard”) will be triggered by a system of linked intercoms set up along the perimeter of the space.
Visitors are encouraged to use the intercoms to record brief messages, which are then encoded and displayed as light pulses in an endless array of patterns communicated at the water’s surface. These ever-changing light currents are the visual “voice” supplied by visitors’ recorded messages mixed with the recorded spoken works by five Houston writers: Aris Kian, Jennifer Teets, Martha Serpas, Nick Flynn, and Roberto Tejada. Their spoken works will shape the installation’s soundscape, which will be spliced with visitors’ recorded messages, creating a choral work of original and site-responsive voices that bounce as light throughout the Cistern’s vastness.
“Undercurrents aims to create a choral work where live voice messages from participants are mixed with poetry commissioned from some of Texas’s most salient authors,” explained Lozano-Hemmer. “The project is made in the spirit of ‘coming together’ that the great American composer Frederic Rzewski proposed as the most important objective of art at a time of turmoil.”
Due to the special nature of the work, “Undercurrents” will be viewed only by 45 visitors at a time in groups admitted every 15 minutes.
“Undercurrents” will be mounted in a structurally refurbished Cistern. Epoxy Design Systems, a Houston-based concrete repair and restoration firm, recently completed reinforcing several of the signature concrete columns and patching minor leaks. The $200,000 repair project that necessitated temporarily closing the space is the first significant structural enhancement since the Cistern first opened to the public.
“Undercurrents” may be the biggest installation of 2026, but it’s not the Cistern’s only draw in its momentous anniversary year. Special public performances, readings, and events will attend the run of “Undercurrents.”
For more information about Buffalo Bayou Partnership and the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern and to book a visit, go to the organization’s official website.
Photos courtesy of Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern