In a night of immersive projection art and sound, please join us for this year’s Portland Winter Light (non)Festival, as the Museum partners with Mobile Projection Unit in collaboration with artist Crystal Cortez to present Sea Creatures. An annual event of the Willamette Light Brigade, this year’s Portland Winter Light (non)Festival takes the form of pop-up light art installations spread throughout the city to continue building community by bringing art and technology to inclusive audiences during the pandemic.
The Museum is happy to be participating in this year’s (non)Festival in showcasing the work of Mobile Projection Unit artists Fernanda D’Agostino and Sarah Turner with Crystal Cortez. Sea Creatures was conceived as an investigation of the ocean’s transformational power and its age-old position in myth and cosmology in every culture. The installation investigates the different moods of water and how it pervades our consciousness, our mythologies, and our rituals of health and healing. The Mobile Projection Unit uses digital programming and projection mapping to allow performers to embody the reality that in our essence we are all “sea creatures.”
Sea Creatures projection imagery includes the work of artists Yunuen Rhi, Lisa and Juju Kusanagi, Jaleesa Johnston and Sophia Wright Emigh, Sarah Turner, Sparrow Dance, Yaara Valey and Sahra Brahim, and Linda K Johnson.
Mobile Projection Unit (MPU) is a roving studio that presents new, experimental, site specific outdoor video projections throughout Portland, Oregon. Their work as an artist team focuses on spatializing video through projection mapping, and live interactive video performance through creative coding. Founded and directed by Fernanda D’Agostino and Sarah Turner in 2018, MPU is a curatorial project and artistic vehicle. Part of MPU’s curatorial ethos is to put the tools of production into the hands of artists. MPU has shown work at guerilla sites around the Portland region, Portland International Film Festival, Portland Art Museum, Northwest Film Center, Venice VR Expanded, PICA’s Time Based Art Festival, Astoria Visual Arts, and more. MPU is funded in part by the Precipice Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Calligram Foundation, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council, Northwest Film Center, and Portland Art Museum.
Since 1984 Fernanda D’Agostino has completed twenty-five public commissions and fifteen solo exhibitions; many incorporating moving images in novel ways. Her work has been recognized by a Bonnie Bronson Fellowship, Flintridge Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts and has twice been selected by the Public Art Network’s “Year in Review” of the best American public art. Her video work has screened at Rencontres Internationales Sciences et Cinémas, France; 809 International New Image Art Festival, China; Technarte-Bilboa, Spain; Madcat International Experimental Film Festival; EVA, London; and Mumbai International Film Festival, The Portland art Museum and PICA’s TBA Festival.
Sarah Turner is a new media artist, curator, and community builder based in Portland, OR. She is the artistic director of Pink noise and the Co-Founder of Mobile Projection Unit. Her work utilizes large scale video mapping projection and immersive installations. Her work has been shown at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s TBA Festival, Portland International Film Festival, Portland Art Museum, Northwest Film Center, Spaceness Festival, Marfa Open Festival, and more. sarahsarahturnerturner.com
Crystal Cortez is a sound, installation artist & programmer based out of Portland Oregon. She is also a professor of Creative Coding & Sonic Arts at Portland Community College. As someone who never saw herself represented in computer music or creative tech her work focuses on the empowerment of underserved populations gaining access and knowledge around technology. In 2019 she co founded whateverSpace, a maker space offering free and sliding scale workshops and technology rentals with priority going to the BIPOC community. Under her performance moniker Crystal Quartez she transforms field recordings, uses synthesis, audio programming, data sonification, and 3D sound spatialization to produce complex sonic realms. Her practice has recently involved the development of interactive sculptural interfaces and wearable technology that monitor movement and other corporeal methods to liberate the performer from their interfaces. Her art has been shown at NIME, PNCA, Disjecta, PICA, Navel (LA) and more.
Please note, this projection installation includes strobing lights and will fill the Courtyard space. Please plan accordingly for light sensitivities.