In search of WetLand: an adventure on the Philadelphia shoreline

The Philadelphia Fringe Festival is very much like life: It doesn’t always look the way we expect.

It was lovely last Saturday, and I had never been to Penn’s Landing, so I went in search of WetLand, Mary Mattingly’s world premiere installation on the Delaware River. The Fringe catalog shows a digital mock-up that’s all pristine and shining white, with a manicured garden surrounding what seems to be a prefab structure, and that’s what I was looking for, but when I got there — and that was an adventure in itself — it didn’t look at all like the picture.

According to the catalog, the converted houseboat is “designed for a time when people are near the water again, as rivers and oceans overtake our cities and towns,” and the real structure is a much more believable representation of this. Not a sparkling white building with a well-tended garden, but a ramshackle floating houseboat that looks like it was put together from leftover building materials. The garden is made of concrete blocks with straggly greens growing out of holes, there’s a precarious wooden boardwalk with benches, and plants run alongside the structure so you can sit and enjoy the view. Inside it is rather like a boat, with a kitchen, beds, and a bath that looks much like a hot tub on various levels.

And there is a beehive.

It has a kind of Waterworld feel to it, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Kevin Costner pop his head up from the water outside and come to our rescue. If this is to be our future, and considering the amount of rain that has fallen in various sections of the country lately, we might well have to consider how to live on water — although even Noah didn’t have to do it for more than 40 days and nights. WetLand has all the necessities, if not the comforts, of home and presents us with an interesting alternative to urban living under very different circumstances.

What it doesn’t have is a sign pointing the way to the installation. And most of the people in the area had no idea what I was talking about when I asked where it was. So, if you want to go, and if, like me, you don’t know the area all that well, then here’s a hint — it’s south of the Seaport Museum and north of the Spruce Street Harbor pop-up park where people lounge about in beach chairs or cuddle in hammocks while drinking beer and having fun.

The artist herself is living on WetLand, and there are a variety of events taking place on the installation as well, so visit the website for a full list and to RSVP.

Mary Mattingly’s WetLand (free), part of this year’s Presented Philly Fringe Festival, is at the Independence Seaport Museum Pier, 211 S. Columbus Boulevard (at Dock Street), Philadelphia through September 21, open to the public from 10am to 5pm. For more information, call 215-413-1318 or click here.

At right: a view of the dock and gardens beside WetLand. Photo by Naomi Orwin.