Sky Exchange 2020 : Sharing perspectives across a city

The Sky Exchange is a public art project created by Portland artist Brittany Vega and made possible by Portland Textile Month. The project was first created in the summer of 2020 and launched as a city-wide show in October 2020.

As our social circles had grown smaller, the Sky Exchange aimed to engage viewers personally, provide a physical experience with artwork, and make that work available to be seen beyond an enclosed space. Wanting to regain sight of what we share in common, participants were called upon to submit images of the sky as they saw it at any given point in time. Vega then recreated the individual skies into painted and sewn flags, distributing them among the participants to be displayed outside their homes. Each received the sky of another; embracing a view not of their own. While viewers could serendipitously run into the flags as passerby, the show indefinitely exists virtually online for all to see. Over 30 submissions were received, resulting in dozens of painted flags flying around the Portland area; flying an ode to the perspective of another, an ode not to a nation, but to a shared place, a flag for the sky.

This PTM 2020 Distributed Community Project was awarded a project stipend for community impact and excellence made possible in part by a grant from the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition.