River Ode: The Schuylkill Freed

Inspired by William Rush’s 19th century allegorical sculptures that adorn the Water Works, The Schuylkill Chained and The Schuylkill Freed, my installation and performance explore folk histories, hydraulic technologies and the river as sentient being. My performance activates the space with movement, costume and original music, reflecting on the engineering feats that harnessed the power of the river to bring clean water to the people, on the tales of the Schuylkill Rangers, 19th century Irish river pirates from nearby Grays Ferry and on the rebirth of the river after decades of pollution. Anchoring the piece in the Semiquincentennial, I commissioned an artist to make a glass armonica—an instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin that uses water to make music. A series of spinning glass bowls that create ethereal tones when touched with wet fingers, the armonica evokes the water wheels that once hummed in this building and nods to the now empty Kelly swimming pool. My installation includes glass gongs played in performance and an intimate video portrait of the armonica.  Once part of a majestic engineering marvel, the site of this exhibition is now a forlorn ruin, haunted by its past glory. The glass armonica and gongs conjure a mournful resonance within these crumbling walls.

About the Artist

Martha McDonald makes performances and installations that feature handcrafted costumes and objects, which she activates through movement and song. For over two decades, she has developed site-specific interventions in museums, botanic gardens, and historic sites. Her work is grounded in deep research into collections, archives, and historic material practices; and in response to the physical site. 

McDonald has created works for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (Washington, DC), Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (Asheville, NC), the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (Sheboygan, WI), Wharton Esherick Museum (Malvern, PA), the Museum of American Glass at Wheaton Arts (Millville, NJ), Craft Victoria (Melbourne, Australia), Elizabeth Bay House (Sydney, Australia), and for RAIR (Recycled Artists in Residence), The Woodlands Cemetery, and The Rosenbach Museum & Library (all in Philadelphia, PA). She received an MFA from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

McDonald was awarded a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in 2024 to study the evolution of the Appalachian dulcimer in the National Museum of American History and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in Washington, DC.