Jacob Rivkin and Eric Blasso
Bio Pool
2017
Jacob Rivkin explores how we internalize and experience landscape, memory, and wonder. His work ranges from experimental animation, public installation, archival research, and incorporating real time data into sculptures. He teaches Art & Design courses at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania and Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He lives and works in Philadelphia.
The Bio Pool: a submersible, passive filter ‘pool’ for a waterway that uses replaceable biochar modules as a substrate to remove nitrogen and potential heavy metals from the water. Wetland plants growing on top of the biochar bioremediate and accumulate excess nutrients.
The Bio Pools’ primary function is to remove nitrogen run-off from waterways (near agricultural or polluted urban areas). The tool has potential to be used for recreation (swimming and bathing inside the pools’ water) and food production (aquaponics and edible wetland plants). It would function well in a diversity of wetland environments: ponds, lakes, rivers, and sheltered coves.
