I started by looking at a map. It turns out that the shape of the city limits is a really interesting form; we’ve taken the outline of Portland and used it as the footprint for both pieces so that if you looked at them from above, they look just like the shape of the city. Both of the suspended sculptures are also built in the same way, using thousands of hanging disks.
Those are factors unifying both pieces, but each has its own personality. The piece that we’re calling “The City” incorporates blocks and graphics forming big chunks of patterns that are representative of distinct neighborhoods. These sections become a floating map of the city featuring local iconography. “The Sky” is about the broader environmental context. It’s this meditative canopy — a soothing, white, diaphanous space where you can just be at peace. Portland is so much about its environment, the mountains, the farms, the access to nature. It’s about capturing that broader narrative of PDX as this gateway to the Pacific Northwest.
