Every year, the Portland Light Brigade brings our city aglow through the Portland Winter Light Festival — a week packed with interactive art installations, activities and performances. Ever since its founding in 1988, the nonprofit arts organization has colorfully illuminated bridges across the Willamette, celebrating the connections between the east and west sides of the city. In 2015, they started the festival to expand their vision of using artful light to foster community.
This year’s festival featured events all over the city from an LED drag show to “Glow Up” craft workshops to a Samba drumline. I visited the Portland World Trade Center, where dozens of art and technology installations lit up the waterfront blocks southwest of the Morrison Bridge. Walking through the closed-off streets was like stepping into another world — and it was all for free.
People dressed in all kinds of glowing costumes flooded through the exhibits. Some patrons held umbrellas with lights hanging from the dome — an ingenuitive human-jellyfish merging. I had, regrettably, come dressed in an unfashionably non-electric outfit.
On the ground level of the World Trade Center, installations included giant grass sculptures, wooden lanterns people could walk through, a waterfall of color-changing pipes, a kaleidoscopic glass pyramid and many more — all of which, of course, glowed in various (or even changing) colors. One of my favorites was a wall that prompted you to touch a section corresponding to an emotion you felt about the future. In response to your touch, large orbs pulsed in a color correlated to that feeling. I was also quite entranced by “The Super Knebula,” a kinetic sculpture of tendrils that twisted in circles to make an optical illusion.
Inside, the trade center was unrecognizable as an office building. Dimmed overhead light allowed the many illuminated exhibits to fill the vast open space with color. One exhibit, entitled “Love Diodes,” made use of the existing architecture by stringing up lighted, crocheted shapes of an indiscernible geometry to make a tent where people could sit. As a transit enthusiast, I was overjoyed to see a model of a TriMet bus, its windows ethereally luminescent.
Outside, two glass sky bridges above the streets were alight with a rainbow of colors. When I walked through them, the bird’s eye view of people dancing on the road was entrancing. Just when I thought they could not possibly add lights anywhere else, I saw giant, mandala-like images projected onto the sides of buildings. And to top it all off, a seemingly endless bicycle parade came slowly down SW Naito Parkway. Many riders sported helmets and outfits adorned with LEDs or had glowing lights in the spokes of their wheels.
Across the Parkway stood a metal dragon that breathed a ball of (what looked like) fire every ten to 30 seconds or so. For anyone who needed some food to sustain them through an adrenaline rush like this, myriad food trucks populated the area, ready to serve the festival’s patrons.
The Trade Center area was but one of many hubs where the festival had displays. Pioneer Courthouse Square was another packed spot, as was Columbia Square and onward throughout the city. While the week of events has ended, perusing the Winter Light Festival’s program and interactive map at pdxwlf.com/program in and of itself is an engaging and fascinating experience. Get hyped for next year’s festival and, in the meantime, try and spot some bridges lighted by the Portland Light Brigade!
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