Dublin City Council is delighted to announce that 2 extra cities have been added to the Portal
The livestreams will now connect people on North Earl St with New York, Vilnius in Lithuania and Lublin in Poland, rotating every 180 seconds.
“The Portal in Dublin has attracted over 340,000 visitors since its launch in May and has brought a new lease of life to North Earl Street,” said the Lord Mayor of Dublin, James Geoghegan.
“We are delighted to see the network of cities expand to Vilnius and Lublin and look forward to seeing more people enjoy the Portals experience.”
The Vilnius Portal is positioned adjacent to the city’s central station, and the Lublin Portal is located on the central city square, Litewski Square. “We are delighted today to welcome Dublin and New York – the next cities to join this unique project. We are excited that our Portal is growing in reach and popularity, opening up unlimited opportunities for communication and collaboration on an international scale. Thanks to the installation, we can now peek into New York’s Manhattan and Dublin’s city centre, share culture, experiences and initiate new projects together” said Beata Stepaniuk-Kuśmierzak, Deputy Mayor of the City of Lublin for Culture, Sport and Participation.
Having been at the centre of global media attention, Portals have emerged as iconic landmarks, generating billions of online impressions and attracting an average of 25,000 weekly visitors onsite in Dublin. On the Flatiron South Plaza in New York City, foot traffic surged by 47% over the 2023 monthly average.
Previously connected in pairs (NYC to Dublin, and Vilnius to Lublin) the sculptures have fostered diverse interactions across the cities, including vibrant dance competitions, cultural performances and successful marriage proposals. This next chapter of the Portals journey realizes the original mission of the project by evolving from two-city connections to a first-of-its-kind, global artwork that invites people from multiple countries to meet in a spirit of unity.
“We can discover how similar we all are through the use of portals, which connect us to a shared network that brings people from different places and cultures closer together. I hope that this idea, which originated in Lithuania, will continue to grow and connect the entire world, allowing people to better understand each other.” said Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of the Economy and Innovation of Lithuania.
“We are thrilled to finally connect all four Portal sculptures together“, said Benediktas Gylys, founder and artist of portals.org. “The Portals mission is about building multiple Portals, which together form a global entity – a bridge to a united planet that invites people of distant cultures to meet above borders, differences and narratives. It took us eight years to arrive at this special day and we are grateful for the consistent support from our partners in Dublin, New York City, Vilnius, and Lublin. The current four Portals form the foundation of a network that will expand later this year, bringing Portals to even more countries around planet Earth.”
Visitors to the Portals will be able to meet each other in real time across four different time zones and engage in this global artwork. The network rotation is active daily from 1pm to 8pm in Dublin/ 8am to 3pm in NYC/ 2pm to 9pm in Lublin / 3pm to 10pm in Vilnius. More Portal locations are being added to the network later this year.
Dublin Portal faces the capital’s main street, O’Connell Street, and captures the iconic vista of both Dublin’s famous GPO building and the Spire together. Dublin City Council has delivered the sculpture as part of its designation as the European Capital of Smart Tourism 2024