Hopscotch | Complete

[maccoinnich]

A Texas Art Gallery Is Taking Over an Old Orchard Hardware
Hopscotch, Portland opens this summer in 23,000 square feet with bites from Top Chef’s Sara Hauman and an international cast of installation artists.



WHEN DESCRIBING their San Antonio, Texas, art gallery to friends and relatives, Hopscotch founders Hunter Inman and Nicole Jensen usually resort to videos. Descriptors like “art installation” and “immersive experience” have grown so ubiquitous they’re practically devoid of meaning. Not to mention “technology based.” The work they show, like New York artist Basia Goszczynska’s Rainbow Cave, which repurposes waste plastics to depict something akin to an ethereal ice cave, and Los Angeles artist Todd Moyer’s interactive Graffiti Laser are really better experienced than discussed.

When Hopscotch’s second outpost opens in the former Orchard Hardware space in Southeast Portland’s Goat Blocks this June, it won’t be the next OMSI; nor can it really be compared with the Portland Art Museum.

The 23,000-square-foot space is currently being sectioned into 13 individual, expansive galleries that will orbit around a central bar and lounge, offering small bites from Top Chef alum Sara Hauman. Each room will host distinct experiences: one the size of a small airplane hangar will be plastered with six murals produced in partnership with the Portland Street Art Alliance. Another, intriguingly, will house something called “the Quantum Trampoline.”

From the time you walk through the sliding glass doors, which are the only remnant of the former tenant, the idea is to “keep that fourth wall—whatever you want to call it—out,” says Inman. But for all its escapist allure and teases of sensory deprivation, Hopscotch is also “not an escape room.”

...continues at Portland Monthly.

[maccoinnich]

Chef Sara Hauman Will Serve Kimchi Waffles at This Forthcoming Interactive Art Gallery
The Top Chef contestant will develop the food and beverage program for Hopscotch Portland, which opens in early June



When visiting Hopscotch, an interactive museum and art gallery in San Antonio, visitors start their experience by using their palate. Guests often start in the lounge on the first floor, where they sip tequila cocktails out of tamarind straws, munch through cotton candy perched atop sparkling wine, and lick edible glitter off the sides of glasses. Hopscotch visitors are encouraged to take their drinks with them through the gallery — a “pairing” of sorts for the exhibits.

When Hopscotch opens its Southeast Portland location on June 9, it will offer a number of fun installations like the San Antonio location — a colorful cave made from scrap plastic bags and fishing nets, a trippy neon trampoline, a pool filled with 40,000 light-emitting diodes — complemented by a similar culinary component. Sara Hauman, the Top Chef contestant and former Arden chef, is developing the food and beverage program for Hopscotch Portland, with things like kimchi waffles and mushroom-chocolate ice cream.

For co-founder Nicole Jensen, food and beverage has always been an important part of Hopscotch. She has an extensive background in hotels and events, and when she was working on opening her gallery, she felt taste had to be a part of the interactive experience. “Art is holistic,” she says. “Food and beverage has to be a part of that.”

...continues at Eater Portland.