NEWS February 16, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Michael C. McCarron Director, Bureau of Community Affairs (650) 821-4000
[email protected] SF-07-07 SISTER CITIES ARE SHINING PATHS AT SFO Sister City Art Installation Marks 50th Anniversary of San Francisco’s Sister City Relationship with Osaka SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and the San Francisco Arts Commission unveiled the art installation Shining Paths: San Francisco’s Sister Cities, an illumination of the City’s fourteen sister city relationships by Bay Area artist and teacher Lewis deSoto, at a press conference in SFO’s International Terminal prior to the departure of members of the Osaka Sister City Committee on United Flight 885, bound for Kansai International Airport (KIX). The delegation, including Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and Public Defender Jeff Adachi, is traveling to Japan to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the sister city relationship between San Francisco and Osaka. Shining Paths is an extension of the installation On the Air, which was commissioned as part of the International Terminal construction, completed in 2000. On the Air is a 12,000 square foot design in terrazzo, with bronze medallions on the floor of the Airport’s International Terminal’s arrival lobby area. The terrazzo design features a global isobar map, with 160 bronze medallions representing international airports around the world. The imagery for the medallions is created from the actual airport landing approach plates used by pilots. Shining Paths uses the same aeronautical map imagery for each city’s airport, overlaid with the image of the city’s flower.