After two years of hard work, a new type of art show is set to begin. The "Alpha-Chem Signal" project is a one-day pop-up outdoor exhibit that features eye-catching work blended with activism and novel, accessible education.
"Community agency, stewardship, and activism starts with education, and I believe education should be accessible, wonderful, and most importantly fun," explained David Buckley Borden, lead artist and UO Associate Research Professor. "This public activism project took over two years to create and the team and I are beyond excited to debut it at Green Island and share it with the folks in the greater Eugene area.”
The Alpha-Chem Signal project will make its debut at McKenzie River Trust’s Green Island (31799 Green Island Rd, Eugene, OR 97408) in Eugene on Saturday, May 9 (8 AM–4 PM) as part of McKenzie River Trust’s monthly Living River Exploration Day. Borden and collaborators invite the public to explore how floodplain restoration helps rivers slow, filter, and clean water—and to spell out personal messages using more than thirty large-format signal flags.
The one-day pop-up event is both outdoor art exhibition and interactive community art happening. The event is free, accessible, and open to all ages. The colorful four-by-four-foot fabric flags are playful mash-ups of traditional nautical flags and the periodic table of chemical elements.
The project highlights common water-quality issues found throughout North America. The tactical public art project is designed to tour North America and will travel to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for its next public installation.
The design development and fabrication of the Alpha-Chem Signal project was funded by creative-practice research grants from the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes at the University of Oregon, the Now and There Public Art Accelerator program, and the sale of artwork on the dedicated website.