The Sky Exchange is a public art project first created in the summer of 2020 and being launched again in October 2021.

As our social circles contracted over the last year, 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. I 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.

Sky Exchange II will open in October 2021 and has expanded beyond borders to invite participants from all over the world to create a flag of their own this summer and exchange it for the flag of another. For this global engagement, this year’s Sky Exchange provided virtual workshops for those participating, will host an exhibition of the flags in Portland, Oregon, and complete the final exchange among those involved sending over 70 flags across the world. More unique to this rendition, I will not be creating the flags myself but will act as facilitator as over 70 participants will make one of their own specific to their personal perspective of the sky wherever they are. These dozens of artists, however experienced, have no creative limitations so flags are apt to stray from traditional form. All of these flags will unite in one space during October as a highlighted project with community partner Portland Textile Month.