Between college and "the real world," design alum and animator Vivian Cho finds herself on the University Bridge.
You might see self-driving cars in Seattle soon. Generative AI might eclipse tech jobs previously held by humans. But on Seattle’s University Bridge, two towers host two professionals whose roles can’t be automated.
In the northwest tower, a technician operates a drawbridge. And in the southeast tower, an artist draws the bridge.
Vivian Cho, ’25, was the 2025 Artist in Residence at the University Bridge. An animator by trade, Cho studied Visual Communication Design at the UW and found herself at a crossroads—or a bridge—upon graduation. “I’m at a point between finishing college and being like, ‘OK, who am I as an artist?’” Cho says. “I think it’s very poetic that I’ve come to work at a literal bridge.”
Vivian Cho spent 2025 as the Artist in Residence at the University Bridge. Cho’s sketches, like the birds featured on this page, are taped to the window of a small office on the bridge.
The Bridge Artist in Residence program, a collaboration between Seattle’s Department of Transportation and its Office of Arts & Culture, began in 2005 to encourage artwork that reflects the engineering and cultural significance of Seattle’s University and Fremont bridges. Artists receive a $10,000 stipend, access to the bridges and free exploration of bridge data and history archives. For the 2025 residency, the city sought artists with animation backgrounds. From September to December, Cho climbed a narrow red staircase to observe and work in the University Bridge tower.
The office, hovering above the Montlake Cut between the University District and Portage Bay, consists of a small bathroom, an air conditioner and a desk stacked with paper and drawing utensils. It overlooks the bridge, which buzzes with pedestrians, cars, cyclists and birds. You can see the Cascade Mountains and Cho’s sketches taped to the windows.
“The few people I’ve had in here, they’re like, ‘Oh, it must be so distracting.’ But I think it’s kind of rhythmic,” Cho says. “The rhythms of people coming and going by.”
The tranquil atmosphere in the tower flows well with Cho’s work, which she says leans “more ambient and abstract, a lot more influenced by emotion.” After spotting a heron several days in a row, Cho incorporated the bird into her work.
The final project, on display at ARTS at King Street Station from June 4–Aug. 8, is a three-minute-long, hand-drawn animated film called “Interstice.” “It explores those in-between moments throughout your day, the beauty in slowing down and appreciating what’s around you,” Cho says.
At a time when the animation industry is trending toward AI integration, Cho finds a “stiltedness” in computer-generated animation, compared to the painstaking process of hand-drawn works. “If you lose the process—and the process is completely vital in discovering what is the story that you want to tell and how are you going to tell it—there’s not going to be any soul,” she says. “No matter how good AI gets, it’s going to always miss that part.”