After its debut over New York City and the many communities that share the very same longitude, Polar Rainbow will be rotated around the globe, finding temporary destinations for this unifying intervention. Polar Rainbow will appear in Times Square from June 1–30, 2022 in honor of Pride month. As a peaceful political demonstration, the chain spanned 430 miles across the respective countries’ borders during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The project is inspired by the 1989 “Baltic Chain of Freedom”, when approximately two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined hands and linked arms to form a human chain. Inspired by the discovery that rainbows do not exist in the North or South pole, the augmented reality sculpture Polar Rainbow creates a virtual double rainbow stretching between the two poles along the 74W meridian line - the most populous meridian in the Americas, which happens to cut right through Times Square along 7th Avenue.Īncāns created Polar Rainbow in support of communities under duress, calling for visions of empathy, awareness and solidarity. Latvian-British artist Kristaps Ancāns’s Polar Rainbow brings a virtual rainbow to the sky above Times Square for the entire month of June, visible through your phone.
