New Interactive Work by Renowned Multi-Media Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Highlights Houston Cistern’s Landmark Year
Buffalo Bayou Partnership Celebrates Cistern’s 100th Anniversary and 10-Year Mark as Houston’s Beloved Public Art Venue with Major Art Installation
HOUSTON, TX (March 24, 2026) – 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, that kickstarts a monthslong 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. Over the past decade, the Cistern has been a transformative space for the works of artists including Magdalena Fernández, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Anri Sala, and Rachel Rossin.
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.” Taken together, these public programs underscore Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s vision for Buffalo Bayou Park, one of Houston’s most treasured natural resources, and its commitment to engaging the public to use its vibrant public spaces.
To install Lozano-Hemmer’s highly technical site-specific work, “Undercurrents,” the Cistern will close at the end of March until just before it opens to the public, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership announced.
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.
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Mexican Canadian media artist, creates platforms for public participation by using robotic lights, digital fountains, computerized surveillance, and telematic networks. Inspired by phantasmagoria, carnival, and animatronics, his interactive works are “anti-monuments for people to self-represent.” He was the first artist to represent Mexico at the 2007 Venice Biennale. His large-scale participatory art installations transform public spaces, creating connective environments for communities. In 2019, he presented “Border Tuner,” designed to interconnect the bordering cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Other works were commissioned for events such as the Millennium Celebrations in Mexico City (1999), the UN World Summit in Lyon (2003), the Winter Olympics in Vancouver (2010), and the pre-opening of the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi (2015), among others. His works are in collections around the world such as MoMA, Guggenheim, TATE, Reina Sofía, and Hirshhorn.
ABOUT BUFFALO BAYOU PARTNERSHIP
Since 1986, Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP) has been reimagining Houston’s most significant natural waterway. As the nonprofit leading the way in creating parks, trails, and vibrant public spaces, BBP focuses on the 10-mile stretch of Buffalo Bayou from Shepherd Drive through downtown and the East End, and on to the Port of Houston Turning Basin. BBP also operates comprehensive green space and waterway maintenance programs and engages tens of thousands of visitors each year with dynamic programming, public art, volunteer events, and recreational experiences that bring the bayou — and the city — to life.
ABOUT THE BUFFALO BAYOU CISTERN
A structure reminiscent of the ancient Roman cisterns in Istanbul, the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern is a cavernous, 87,500-square-foot space featuring more than 200 slender, 25-foot-high concrete columns. BBP rediscovered the Cistern in 2010 when it was developing Buffalo Bayou Park, a 160-acre green space west of downtown Houston. Recognizing the significance of the highly unusual site, BBP took the bold step of repurposing the Cistern into a magnificent public space. In addition to tours highlighting the history and architecture of the Cistern, BBP presents an ambitious program of changing art installations in this iconic space, including past works by Magdalena Fernández, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Anri Sala, and Rachel Rossin.