The Georgetown Steam Plant is more than a decommissioned power station in Georgetown; it is a sprawling, multi-story "industrial cathedral" that invites reverence and a specific kind of wandering to fully experience it. To move through it is not simply to observe, but to listen, to trace, and to get lost in time. History permeates the air like the constant, heavy scent of trapped bunker oil—a reminder that this is one of Seattle’s most singular and most haunting event spaces—a relic of the industrial age.

Spending nearly two years immersed in its labyrinth of pipework, gauges, levers, stairs, and railings—scaling turbines, navigating the boiler room, and finding life in the exciters—offered a perspective far beyond a typical residency. For me it became a continuous dialogue between early 20th-century engineering and a heavily impacted, evolving present. To step inside is to bridge the optimism of the industrial age with an outside world still reckoning with the consequences of our insatiable demand for

"more steam."

Sound gathers differently here. Echo chambers, dead rooms, pipes, and railings have become industrious instruments—resonant surfaces that carry the subtle frequencies of the present.

There is an undeniable romance here; I fell in love.

It is impossible not to stand in awe of these machines. Rarely are we permitted to get so intimate with such monumental expressions of human ambition, with our ability to convert raw materials into the forces that illuminate the modern world. Yet, the plant’s life as a workhorse was relatively brief. Its labor was intense, but short-lived.

Today, the plant no longer generates power, but instead amplifies memory, tension, and the lingering imprint of the fossil fuel age. In this stillness, a new kind of power emerges—one that depends entirely on who experiences it and why. Is it our love for the marriage of man and the machine that draws us in? Is it a "terrible madness" and the impact on the natural world that causes deep contemplation? Or is it, quite simply, because the machines are so beautiful?

Whatever the reason, the experience of getting lost inside the Steam Plant is one I will cherish forever. It was within this cathedral of steel that the Science Fair was born.

What follows are the most resonant moments captured during my time inside the machine.