bridge projects
Check out these ideas for installations and events that we are planning for the PDX Bridge Festival (in 2010, and beyond…)
HAWTHORNE BRIDGE CENTENNIAL PROJECT
Artist sketch: Gabe Shaughnessy
The centerpiece of the festival is the Hawthorne Bridge, which celebrates its hundredth anniversary in 2010. To celebrate the centennial of the nation’s oldest working vertical lift bridge, we’ve designed an installation that will turn this bridge into a kinetic art installation. A solar-powered lighting display, installed for the duration of the festival, makes use of interactive elements to transform the bridge’s traffic into a catalyst for moving light. For one hour on the night of Saturday, July 31, the Hawthorne Bridge will raise to reveal a projection screen stretched across the displaced area of the lift span. The screen provides a framework to give a visual tour of Portland—who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going—using gathered media from the last 100 years, text-based interactions from our audience, and captured images from the event. This display, produced in conjunction with a free concert on the Morrison Bridge, will be visible from neighboring bridges, both banks of the river, and downtown buildings. The Hawthorne Bridge Centennial Project will be a spectacle to remember!
MORRISON BRIDGE CONCERT
Artist sketch: Gabe Shaughnessy
PDX Bridge Festival, in partnership with our sponsors, will present a free public concert and performance that brings local musical acts and performers together for a weekend event on the Morrison Bridge. Drawing people onto the bridge to experience it as public space, the event site provides prime viewing of the Hawthorne Bridge during the Centennial Project projection show. With a variety of acts currently being scheduled, we plan to attract a wide audience with many different tastes. As a historical reference for this, an event produced by Multnomah County in 1999 attracted 30,000+ people to a concert on the Hawthorne Bridge. We hope to exceed this number!
BURNSIDE BRIDGE “DRAWBRIDGE” PROJECT
Artist sketch: Gabe Shaughnessy
This program has sent local artists and art teachers into
classrooms to work with schoolchildren as part of the Portland Public School District third grade curriculum on bridges. For this year’s pilot project, over 120 students have been tasked with creating works of graphic art representing the role of the Willamette River Bridges in our regional identity and transportation infrastructure. Chosen graphics will then be printed on 38 full-color, double-sided banners, and installed for the duration of the festival on the lamp posts along the thoroughfare of the Burnside Bridge.
“BRUNCH ON THE BRIDGE”
This finale event of the festival is being produced in partnership with the Salvation Army, to bring awareness to the food we eat and where it comes from. The brunch—which will transform the southern lane of the Hawthorne Bridge into a public space fit for a picnic of thousands—will strengthen the bonds between our urban and rural communities, while at the same time addressing issues of hunger. This public event, held from 10am-1pm on Saturday, August 7, centers on an open-air food experience in a nontraditional location. Lucky participants will get a chance to experience the Hawthorne Bridge, and delicious food, in a playful and fantastic environment!
FREMONT BRIDGE — “ARCHITEXTURE” INSTALLATION
Artist sketch: Gabe Shaughnessy
This installation is geared towards transforming the daily traffic of thousands of commuters into a close encounter with public art. The 36 unique steel triangles that are part of the bridge structure are filled with colored planes of material, turning the superior design of the arch into a soaring surface of color. The rigid structure would be thus transformed into a playful canvas, full of color and light, that bends down toward the river from the West, up and over with the dramatic arch of the bridge, and then down to the river again before ending on an upward trajectory at its eastern terminus.
