Thanks to the delightful crew that came to our August brainstorm, East Portland Collective officially has a project submitted for Portland Winter Light Fest 2024!
Based on our brainstorming session, we’ve pitched the following idea… a community-built Deep Sea Sculpture Garden, made of plastic waste & illuminated to cast shadows, fluoresce, and inspire you to explore the deep!
Explore the deep through the imagination & vision of the Lents community through our
community-created sculpture garden! Sculptures will be made of recycled/upcycled materials
& trash, and illuminated with lights to create brightness & shadow through the figures in the
space. Sculptures will be highlighted and pops of bright colors created with UV paint & lights.
Viewable through venue windows from outside. We will likely have a handful of open-house
nights as well to wander through the garden!
This is a community-imagined and community-created sculpture art project. We will be
transforming plastic trash to deep-sea inspired & illuminated sculptures to bring awareness to
plastic & microplastic pollution, it’s affects on our commuinty, and come together as a
community to make awesome illuminated art!
Other exciting ideas included…
- Including performance art & music classes, then using our deep-sea sculpture garden as a community stage to share *event* *more* *art*
- Using our sculpture media (plastic waste) to educate and create conversations about the impact of plastic and microplastics on our environment and bodies
What other ideas do you have? Do you like this concept? Are you excited? Let us know by sending us a note or filling out our brainstorm form: https://forms.gle/a5Vs9E2cDSb5gDTy9
What are the next steps?
Our application to participate as an official PDXWLF exhibit was submitted on September 22nd! Now we wait and we start to build out our project timeline, budget, and identify partnerships.
Once we have the budget drafted, we can start to apply to grants to fund the project – historically we’ve had this project funded by EPCO Community Grant (PDXWLF’22), and most recently, SE Uplift Small Grant funding (PDXWLF’23) – these grants are due 11/1 and 10/31, respectively!
Once we have funding, it’s all about spreading the word, getting the community together, and making art!
Want to be part of the process? Send us an email today and let us know what you’d like to help with! EastPDXCollective [at] gmail [dot] com
Volunteering your time for planning not only builds your skills (grant writing, social media, community event planning), but also builds capacity in our neighborhood and community! East Portland Collective is comprised of 100% volunteer neighbors… and we want to work with you!
Community Art Creation Process
Learn more about the process by checking out our project summary from our 2023 “Lights in Lents” exhibit!
