''Cairns'' is an outdoor 2008 public art installation by American artist Christine Bourdette, installed in the Old Town Chinatown neighborhood of

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, in the United States.

Description

Christine Bourdette's ''Cairns'' (2008) consists of a series of five stacked

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

(or silver ledgestone) forms near

Portland Union Station Portland Union Station is a train station in Portland, Oregon, United States, situated near the western shore of the Willamette River in Old Town Chinatown. It serves as an intermediate stop for Amtrak's '' Cascades'' and ''Coast Starlight'' ro ...

at the north end of the Transit Mall in Portland's Old Town Chinatown neighborhood. The stacks are installed at Northwest 6th Avenue and Northwest Glisan Street, and along Northwest 5th and 6th avenues between Glisan and Irving streets. They create a path to the MAX Light Rail stations Union Station / Northwest 6th & Hoyt Street and Union Station / Northwest 5th & Glisan Street. Bourdette was inspired by

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

s, or stacks of stones are used as landmarks for memorials and navigation. She has said of the sculpture:

A progression of increments, marking departure and arrival, marking a path; these basic aspects of time and travel have governed my approach to the three Union Station sites. As I considered ways in which humans mark pathways, I thought of cairns, those man-made stacks of stones that mark hiking trails and which historically have served as landmarks for land and sea navigation, memorials, and commemorative markers. Travelers on cross-country trails traditionally add stones to cairns as they pass, resulting in animated and precarious stacks of rocks and pebbles. This evidence of human comings and goings, these reminders that others have followed the same path signify safety and reassurance out in the wilderness. In the urban wilderness, finding one's way through the various stages of hurry-up-and-wait are just as significant. These stand-alone works speak to the step-by-step marking of time, and incorporate varying degrees of elegance and playfulness. They are related to each other through this thematic underpinning and through the use of stone, but each responds to its site in its own way.

The sculptures measure x x , x x , x x , x x , x x , and x x , respectively. ''Cairns'' was funded by TriMet and is administered by the Regional Arts & Culture Council.

References

{{Public art in Portland, Oregon 2008 establishments in Oregon 2008 sculptures Old Town Chinatown Outdoor sculptures in Northwest Portland, Oregon Sculptures on the MAX Green Line Stone sculptures in Oregon

Description

See also

References