Union Station Sky Distillation Unit (Demo)

The Union Station Sky Distillation Unit (demo) is a commission from the City of Los Angeles’s and Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles’s “Save the Drop” campaign. It demonstrates the way in which we can save and collect water from the sky and direct it toward our plants, flowers and food.

I was given four rain barrels and a large cistern and told that the sculpture would start in Union Station but would be moved to other locations around Los Angeles. Resourcefulness and the poetics of the everyday are important to me so I used found materials wherever possible and worked with the surrounding details of Union Station itself. In doing so, Union Station, a place where many have traveled from, will finally get to travel.

-Scoli Acosta

The Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles partnered with artist Scoli Acosta to display an art installation in the historic Waiting Room at Union Station. The cistern from the installation will be donated for use to local Los Angeles public libraries.

To learn more about how you can capture rainwater, click here.

About Scoli Acosta

Acosta’s artwork highlights the central role L.A.’s thriving arts scene can play in environmental education. Born in 1973 and raised in East Los Angeles, where he currently lives, Acosta has exhibited his work throughout L.A., San Diego, New York, and France. An artist of many mediums, Acosta focuses his installations around the recombination and adaptation of “everyday” objects to articulate his creative vision. Acosta studied fine art at the Kansas City Art Institute and at Ultimate Akademie in Cologne, Germany and is represented by Galerie Laurent Godin in Paris. He is a recent recipient of the California Community Foundation’s Mid-Career Fellowship for Visual Artists. Visit http://www.scoliacosta.com for more information.