Client: Portland Bureau of Transportation

Overview

3000 pieces of Yellow Dupont Tyvek© wheatpasted 6-stories high. In collaboration with the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) and after / time collective, Carr designed and installed two temporary art installations on the east and west exterior facades of the SmartPark garage at 730 SW 10th Avenue – creating a dynamic interaction between built environment and the viewer. Colored rectangles, in their uniformity, become tools of disruption and harmony to highlight the modularity and repetitive patterns that underpin much of modern architecture. Applied to buildings, walls, and public spaces, they evoke new relationships between people and their surroundings.

Drawing inspiration from the large-scale and transformative work of Jean-Claude and Christo, the flat, yellow squares momentarily reimagine urban space serving as catalysts for community engagement. They shift static spaces into dynamic canvases, encouraging viewers to move, pause, and reconsider their environment. The colored square, in its infinite possibilities, becomes a vehicle for transformation, breathing life into static forms and reimagining how we engage with the world around us.

Goals

Carr is interested in ways that singular characters can be combined in unique sequences to create larger systems and how these small units, collectively, can have a big impact. This installation served as a spatial connector that transformed the built environment, evoking new layers of meaning, interaction, and perception within the neighborhood. The two artworks contain 3000 pieces that fit in a shoebox, and speaks to the small, united efforts of Portlanders working to activate the city’s downtown core.

Process

Carr aims to create installations that are rooted in community identity and values.
Each work is site-specific and highly collaborative - creating pieces that respond to the unique spirit and identity of each community. To install 3000 Yellow Rectangles on a Parking Garage, Carr coordinated all design approvals, permitting, equipment rental, photodocumentation, and marketing herself. She completed the installation over four days using a cable hoisted platform stage, and will remove the work in the same manner.