"Portal" at Presidio Main Post
September - November 2017 | Free
The San Francisco Portal is presented in partnership by Shared_Studios, Luminalt, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and the National Park Service as an Art in the Parks endeavor. The Portal is powered by solar, courtesy of Luminalt, a San Francisco-based solar company.
Portals is an ongoing global initiative created by Shared_Studios, a multidisciplinary art, design, and technology collaborative. The project is focused on connecting individuals from across the world, inspired by the importance of understanding each other’s cultures and hearing each other’s stories. A Portal is a gold-painted shipping container equipped with immersive audiovisual technology that can be connected to a network of over 20 Portals in 11 countries around the world.
“When you enter a Portal, you come face-to-face, live, full-body, with someone in an identical gold shipping container somewhere else in the world,” Michelle Moghtader, co-founder of Shared_Studios. “Participants use Portals to have a personal connection with someone from another part of the world. They explore the culture and history of other places, talk with one another about their lives, exchange ideas, and collaboratively celebrate, create, perform, and play together.”
After three months in its location at Crissy Field East Beach, with over 1000 participants, the San Francisco Portal has moved to It will be open to the public Friday through Sunday. The Portal will be staffed by a Portal Curator, and live language interpretation will be provided. To learn more about our Art in the Parks initiative visit: parksconservancy.org/art/.
In addition to open public hours, the Portal will be a part of an artist exchange program between the United States and Spain with artist residencies in our park and at the Cultural Center of Tabacalera in Málaga, Spain. The Cultural Center of Tabalacera, originally a Tobacco Factory from the 1920s, is one of the most emblematic buildings in the Málaga. It now serves as a cultural center, hosting temporary exhibitions and activities featuring photography, contemporary art, and the visual arts.
The residency artists from the United States and Spain, using the Portal as a tool, will explore the use and reuse of the Presidio and Tabalacera heritage sites, engaging with local curators, subject matter experts, and the visiting public. The artists will work with each other and the local communities to open a dialogue about art, history, and culture. Share your photos of the Portal with the hashtag #SFMalagaPortal.
The Presidio Portal project and the artist exchange program is a partnership between the Presidio Trust and the Cultural Office, Embassy of Spain (Washington, D.C.), Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and Shared_Studios.
About the Artists
Moreno & Grau Studio – Spanish Artists Visiting the Presidio
Alba Moreno and Eva Grau are conceptual artists from Málaga, Spain. They met at San Telmo School of art and in 2012 began working collaboratively. Alba’s main medium is photography while Eva’s main medium is video. Together they form Moreno & Grau Studio and use photography and video to capture their process of building an imaginary world, one that often includes sculptures and installations made in the studio. Common threads within their artwork: landscape as an emotional state, the use of portraits in art, the limits of the human being, duality, and the concept of water as a common thread, like the mysterious element and bearer of life.
