Illuminate The Pink Triangle for SF Pride
WRITTEN BY Kelly Costello / PHOTOGRAPHY Provided by Patrick Carney and Illuminate
For the past 24 years, during the San Francisco Pride Celebration, a Pink Triangle has watched over San Francisco from Twin Peaks as a symbol of hope, resilience, and remembrance for the LGBT community, San Franciscans and the thousands of people who flock to San Francisco each year for Pride. This year, due to COVID-19, the official SF Pride celebration was cancelled, and out of these unfortunate circumstances a new project to Illuminate the Pink Triangle was born.
Patrick Carney, founder of The Pink Triangle, has teamed up with the SF-based non-profit Illuminate to bring the installation to life this year, using LED lights for its brightest and most vibrant iteration ever, lighting up the city skyline like never before. Patrick and Ben Davis, the visionary founder of Illuminate and a member of SHACK15, joined us for a recent installment of SHACK15 Conversations to share the vision behind The Pink Triangle, what it means to the city and ways to get involved.
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The History
As Patrick put it, The Pink Triangle has a dark history that is not all love and rainbows. The symbol was originally used in Nazi Germany in concentration camps as a way to identify and persecute homosexual prisoners. It first became a symbol for pride in the 1980s when ACTUP, the legendary AIDS advocacy group, reclaimed the mark and turned it upside down in an act of defiance. As the symbol gained prominence, Patrick saw another use for it. In 1996, wanting to bring a little more color to the Pride parade, he looked up and saw Twin Peaks as a beautiful blank canvas, just needing some love and a dedicated community to make it happen.
Every year since, the giant Pink Triangle has been constructed on Twin Peaks by hundreds of volunteers for SF Pride and can be seen for 20 miles. It’s a piece of homemade, homegrown art, that has also evolved into a symbol of global connection. The community project draws participants from all over the world, ages 3 to 90 years old who take to the hillside to turn 175 pink tarps into art.
Illuminate The Pink Triangle
This year, COVID-19 and social distancing restrictions have made way for a reimagined Pink Triangle, a brilliant, one-acre installation illuminated by 43 rows of 2700 dazzling led lights, drawing on Illuminate’s expertise in creating awe-inspiring public art. The transformation will allow the Triangle to be seen from the Oakland Hills and even outer space, reaching more people than ever before.
Illuminate’s work— from the Bay Lights to the 50th Anniversary of Summer of Love, and installations at Grace Cathedral— gets to interact with the history and infrastructure of San Francisco. Ben sees The Pink Triangle, as just that, a “piece of spiritual infrastructure” and an enduring symbol of San Francisco’s resilience and optimism.
This year’s project will be unveiled in an opening ceremony on June 27, and for the first time there will also be a Pink Torch, a new tradition and piece of art that will “light” the piece during the ceremony.
“Pride is a gift we pass down from generation to generation, as is the responsibility to fight for justice and equality. We want this torch to symbolize both, and we hope it becomes a new tradition,” said Cody Smith of Looking Up Arts, the team behind the Torch.
How you can get involved
With the grand opening taking place on Saturday, June 27, there is still much work to be done!
Donate to support the project. Every dollar counts, and longtime SF Pride supporter Wells Fargo is offering to match all gifts throughout the rest of this campaign, up to $30,000.
Share the word!
We are proud to be friends and partners of Illuminate and The Pink Triangle in their historic, community-led effort to let San Francisco’s pride shine during a time when our city needs it more than ever.
For more information, check out their websites: