Company Timeline
2024
Planning and coordination meetings commenced with Alderman Conway’s office, the mayors office, DCASE, CTA, CDOT, and local civic partners, CLA and the tenants on Wabash Avenue.
In March 2024, a significant milestone was achieved when we partnered with the Gertie Foundation and were selected as one of six grant-funded projects for their Next Stop Chicago campaign. This arts, culture, and civic infrastructure initiative aims to showcase Chicago during the Democratic National Convention and beyond.
On August 15, 2024 we celebrated the official launch of Phase 1 with our “Turn on Wabash” event. More details and updates coming soon!
2023
We began a collaboration with Looking Up Arts to design and build custom light fixtures for the totality of the installation on Wabash.
The project was re-concepted into Phases, with a summer 2024 install target for Phase 1 (50 feet of light) and a goal of Phase 2 (one block) between Madison and Monroe.
We reconnected with partners like Comcast, the Chicago Loop Alliance, and previous founders to start to ramp up momentum for a 2024 install of Phase 1 of the Wabash Lights.
Our team met with city officials from Alderman Conway’s office and DCASE. The project received the enthusiasm and support we needed to push towards a summer 2024 install.
2022
February
Activation at Navy Pier
The Arbor Lights is a semi-permanent environment created in collaboration with Looking Up Arts based in San Francisco. The project was installed along the waterfront outside of Chicago's iconic Navy Pier and consists of hundreds of custom-fabricated LED leaves arranged amidst the tree canopy, bringing wonderland liminality to those walking below.
The interactivity of The Arbor Lights is in the hands of participants. To do this, we designed a custom SMS platform that allows them to message the installation and choose between a variety of patterns, abstract 3D shapes, and color gradients.
2019
June
Activation
The lights hit the road for their third season of citywide activation with fantastic partners like SofarSounds, the Lakeview Chamber of Commerce, Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club and many others.
March
Spreading the Word
The Wabash LIghts’ leadership team begin a series of four VIP dinners, introducing the project to a wide array of community and business leaders across Chicago.
January
Growing Capacity
The Wabash Lights’ Board of Directors restructures and grows stronger with the addition of Fundraising, Event, and Education Chair roles.
2018
September
LIGHTBASH, our first annual fundraiser, brings together 300 guests, artists, technologists and community members to celebrate our progress and raise money for the future of The Wabash Lights.
May
Education Program Grows
The Wabash Lights wins a grant to partner with DePaul University’s school of Computation and Digital Media to develop at STEM+ Arts curriculum that brings our mobile lights to CPS schools across the city.
March
Vibration Testing
Working with Philips, CTA, CDOT, and the City of Chicago we install accelerometers on the tracks to measure vibration data. This data will allow us to engineer the lights and mounting brackets to ensure that the lights stay on for a long time.
2017
September
DePaul University Collaboration
Our team began collaborating with students and professors at DePaul University across two quarters to envision and build new ways of interfacing with the lights.
July
The Mobile Lights Unit goes on a public tour of Chicago storefronts across over the summer months to the surprise and delight of patrons and pedestrians.
June
The Wabash Lights Grows Up
We undergo a strategic planning process to our mission as a platform for public art, strengthen our board, create our advisory board and begin building out our programmatic partnerships.
March
PLAY event: Buy a Pixel / Buy a Light
We launched a campaign for people to own part of the The Wabash Lights by being able to purchase the naming rights for a pixel or a light tube that will be a part of the final installation.
January
Mobile Lights Unit
With support from Comcast Chicago, we built a Mobile Light Unit to show off the technology for The Wabash Lights. With the MLU we built out interactive functions giving users the ability to play games on the lights and to control the lights via text messaging.
2016
December
Kickstarter #2 A Success
A second successful Kickstarter allowed us to build operational capacity and to lay the foundation for the full installation to become a reality.
September
CLA Downtown Futures Series
Co-Founder Seth Unger participates in the Chicago Loop Alliance's series about the future of cities and how public art and placemaking can affect the quality of life of Chicagoans.
February
Beta Test Unveiling
Party in the streets! Over 300 people journeyed to Wabash Ave on a frigid February night to celebrate as we turned on the lights for the first time.
January
Beta Test Install
With the funds raised from the first Kickstarter, we were able to install The Beta Test - 12 feet of lights on the Wabash L tracks just south of Madison St in downtown Chicago.
2015
October
App Development Begins
Co-Founders Seth Unger and Jack Newell begin the process of understanding the many ways to use the internet to control the lights installation by beginning an engagement with digital design partner Table XI.
July
Nearly 1,000 amazing, civic-minded, supporters gave close to $60,000 to our first Kickstarter campaign to help ignite our journey and to fun a beta test of the lights.
April
Beta Test Feasibility Testing
Our team, alongside Alrdidge Electric, AAA Engineering, Intelligent Lighting Creations, along with representatives from CDOT, CTA, and the City of Chicago come up with a plan to safely and securely install the beta test lights to the Wabash Avenue L tracks.
2014
October
Chicago Artist Month Event
We announced our intention to bring The Wabash Lights to Chicago during an event as part of Chicago Artists Month to a crowd of excited supporters. Also, there were empanadas.
January
Project Idea is born
Jack and Seth come up with an idea for an inclusive, connected, and authentic public art installation after seeing that a lot of public art in Chicago was not as inclusive as it's promise. The Wabash Lights is born - a public art platform created by and for the public.