Nancy Holt's Waterwork is one of her System Works, a series that makes visible the systems that shape everyday experience. Created for the campus of Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C., a university for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students, the sculpture responds to the topography of the site while revealing the infrastructure that carries water through the urban environment.

Constructed from standard plumbing materials and supplied by water from a regional reservoir, the work traces the movement of water through a network of pipes and channels. Water enters through a single pipe, rises through a 20-foot-high (6.1 m) arch, then passes through the sculpture before flowing along terra-cotta channels and rejoining the larger water system. Its movement is regulated by valves set to a daily rhythm, while two hand-operated wheels allow visitors to alter the flow.

In her notes on Waterwork, Holt described the sculpture and Dark Star Park as her most "sociological works," reflecting her interest in creating places where people could gather, interact, and spend time. She designed the sculpture as a place to move through, linger within, and inhabit, with pipes set at different heights that invite visitors to sit. At its center, beside the wheels that control the water flow, is a sandpit intended for children.

In March 1995, the sculpture was dismantled. Holt was clear that she wished the work to be reinstalled on the Gallaudet campus.