Zoobomb Goes Gold

Sixteen feet above the corner of Burnside and SW 13th,
perched on top of a steel pole and a pile of chained-together
children’s bikes, glints a tiny gold-plated bicycle. Here stands
Portland’s newest and most improbable monument.

On May 29, Mayor Sam Adams attended the rowdy opening of a work of
public art for Zoobomb, marking a significant shift from the olden days
(over five years ago) when the group of bikers clashed with the city
over their weekly ritual of charging en masse down the hills of
Washington Park. The city approached the group two years ago, offering
a $10,000 grant to build a permanent home for Zoobomb’s iconic but
technically illegal pile of bikes locked for years to downtown
racks.

Artists Brian Borrello and Vanessa Renwick started the project on
the right foot by agreeing that major decisions should occur up on the
hill, with actual Zoobombers signing paperwork by bike light, rather
than in the rooms of city hall. Thanks to its inclusive, bottom-up
process, the sculpture is a wild success.

Key to its success is that the “monument” is actually a parody of a
monument. The traditional monument trappings (the height, the gold, the
ceremonial unveiling) poke fun at the absurdity of building a
city-funded monument to the city’s most infamously anarchistic
community. Within hours of the phallic monument’s erection,
bar-crawling Zoobombers happily swarmed the sculpture and posed
pants-down around the pole. When a police cruiser quickly rolled up,
one ‘bomber shouted, “Don’t worry, we’re legitimate now!” The lofty
gold-plated mini-bike is the perfect tongue-in-cheek icon for a
thrill-seeking group that seizes every opportunity—legal or
illegal—for a good joke and a good time.

The group’s new icon is also appropriately apolitical. Sure, the
sculpture is pro-bike, but the plaque at the monument’s base includes
no didactic words about carbon or climate. Instead it reads simply:
“Little bikes, big fun.”

“We’ve brought together a lot of people who never promised to agree
on anything except that we like riding bikes down a hill really fast,”
explains Zoobomber Mykle Hansen. “We don’t necessarily want to be
respected, but we want to be understood. So hopefully this cements our
relationship with the city in a really good way.”