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Portland Grid Project is a group begun in 1996 by Christopher Rauschenberg to photograph the visual environment of Portland, OR. The group divided the city into 88 squares roughly 1.5 miles per side. Each month a square was picked at random and everyone in the group (between 10 and 15 accomplished photographers) went out to photograph anything and anyone they want to, with the only requirement that the camera be positioned in the square. Work was shared at the end of each month, and occasionally work was presented to the public in galleries or public spaces.
The project went through one entire round during the years 1996-2004. In the fall of 2004 it was re-initiated with some of original members, and some new ones including me. As of August 2011, we are about three quarters through round two. There are countless motivations and ramifications for this project, too many to go into here. I think the primary motivation for most members is to make interesting photographs without regard to systematic documentation. The effect that's organically generated from this effort — that is, of 10 -12 people spending a decade making interesting photographs of all parts of the city— is a very dense visual documentation of Portland, certainly one of the most comprehensive portraits of any city in history. Not to mention a lot of very compelling photographs. Personally I am motivated to do the project by a spirit of curiosity/exploration. I know I may not necessarily find good photographs in every corner of the city but that is no reason not to look there anyway. I use the project as a way to structure my wanderings to make sure that I leave absolutely no public space in the city unexplored, taking thousands of photos in the process. It's good clean fun! In fact I enjoy it so much that in March 2008 I started another grid project in my adopted home town of Eugene. I will get photos from that project on this site as it develops. The Portland Grid section of my website is a selection of one photo per month from the project, displayed in chronological order. A broader selection of my grid images can be found here. |