Introduced at the 2020 Portland Winter Light Festival, Chainscape was a riff on that year’s theme, “Nature of Dreams.” Installed at the OMSI Yard, two miles of silver ball chain were suspended from a Unistrut column-and-beam framework, creating a hovering cobalt-blue box of rain. Like a dream sequence, the installation had no beginning or end. Entrances and exits were omnidirectional, inviting participants to engage with the cube from every direction as the chains draped, shifted, and enshrouded bodies in motion. The tactile memory of the experience lingered, even when the dreams themselves could not be remembered.

Chainscape 2.0, installed at Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland’s “Living Room,” reimagined the original experience in response to the 2025 Portland Winter Light Festival theme, “Into the Future.” It became a story of reuse, reassembly, and rediscovery. The future is many-hued, and the familiar box of rain was transformed with cyan-blue LED illumination, casting a gradation of sparkle and shimmer across the otherwise unassuming beads. At the heart of the cube, an inner chamber revealed a mirrored moon and a chaindelier, offering a glimpse of our future selves.

Chainscape 2.0 was envisioned, designed and fabricated by DAO with assistance from H.L. Stearns and iBuildPDX.