Portland’s Monuments & Memorials Project

Featured ARtists

Alan Michelson, anonymous, Avantika Bawa, Baseera Khan, Christian Orellana Bauer, Cleo Davis & Kayin Talton Davis, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Deborah Oropallo and Andy Rappaport, Garrick Imatani, Gregory Sholette, Jaleesa Johnston, Jess Perlitz, Jillian McManemin, Jodie Cavalier, John Griffiths, Layna Lewis, Linda Hutchins, Linda Wysong with Angela Moos in collaboration with Kenton Community, Linda Wysong with Christy Gifford, Lisa Bates & Roshani Thakore, Lynn Yarne, Malia Jensen, Malik Lovette, Marie Watt, Melanie Stevens, Misha Davydov, Natalie Ball, Nate Lewis, Paul Fishman, Paula Wilson, Public Notice, Raul J. Mendez, Roland Dahwen, rubén garcía marrufo, Sandow Birk, Sara Siestreem, Steph Littlebird Fogel, Tabitha Nikolai, Tannaz Farsi, Todd Ayoung, Trevino Brings Plenty, Vanport Mosaic with Laura Lo Forti & Linda Wysong & Vo Vo.

ABOUT

The Portland’s Monuments & Memorials Project (PMMP) brings people together to consider the conditions and impacts of public monuments in Portland, including those that have been removed and those that should be built. Through a public call, online talks, outdoor events, an exhibition, and publication, PMMP seeks to knit together artistic activity and civic dialogue to examine history, public space, civic memory, and markers of the past, present, and future. 

At the center of this project is the question, "What is an appropriate monument or memorial for this time and place?”

In 2020, Portland witnessed the removal of several monuments, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, The Promised Land, Harvey Scott, and others. Many more have been removed by activists and government officials across the country. As we enter into a national dialogue and reckon with historical narratives, contending with the monuments that have been created, we question not only who or what gets memorialized but how we go about it. The questions and responses that arise from this moment are long overdue and ask what else is possible. It reminds us that public art can play an integral role in our society, activating and reflecting who we are and what we value.

Portland’s Monuments & Memorials Project features talks with artists and scholars centered on various case studies of past, present, and proposed projects in public space. PMMP’s inaugural discussion, held online on March 30th, will focus on Alison Saar’s sculpture York: Terra Incognita, located at Lewis & Clark College.

As an integral part of the project, PMMP will issue an Open Call for Public Pedestals. Ideas for new and reenvisioned monuments and memorials will be solicited through an open call for proposals. Submissions will be gathered and shared in an online gallery and with civic leaders. A selection will be included in a culminating curated exhibition of regional and national artists exploring alternative perspectives of current and future monuments & memorials. PMMP will conclude with a publication generated by the design team Omnivore, who will chronicle the ongoing activities as visual scribes, collecting, collating, and synthesizing the project's findings.

Other presentations and workshops in development include youth-focused activities led by Portland artist Sharita Towne that will engage with past and future legacies of public art in schools.

Portland’s Monuments & Memorials is an initiative of Converge 45, with guidance from Converge 45’s Curatorial Committee and the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) Public Art Committee, and co-organized by Mack McFarland and Jess Perlitz.

Portland’s Monuments & Memorials is made possible by a grant from The Ford Family Foundation and additional support from the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC).

Events

Open Call for Proposals

Converge 45’s Portland’s Monuments & Memorials Project (PMMP) brings people together to consider the conditions and impacts of the public monuments in Portland, including those that have been removed and those that should be built.  

As we reckon with history, we must also contend with the monuments created and question not only who or what gets memorialized, but how we go about it. In 2020, Portland witnessed the removal of several monuments, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, The Promised Land, Harvey Scott and others. Many more are being removed by activists and government officials across the country. 

Converge 45 asks applicants to consider the following question:

What is an appropriate monument or memorial for this time and place?
What monument or memorials would you want in your neighborhood? 

Proposals can be for new monuments and memorials. It can also be for interventions, renovations, interpretations or other projects. Proposals will be gathered and shared in an online gallery and with civic leaders. A selection will be included in a curated exhibition of regional and national artists exploring alternative perspectives about current and future monuments & memorials.

Videos

A Talk with Baseera Khan

May 5, 2021
Co-presented by Converge 45 and PNCA’s Hallie Ford School of Graduate Studies MFA in Visual Studies

Baseera Khan is a performance and visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Their work sublimates colonial histories through performance and sculpture in order to map geographies of the future. Khan’s latest solo exhibition, Snake Skin, opened at the end of 2019 at Simone Subal, New York. Having exhibited in numerous locations a selection of Khan’s work has shown at Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, Munich, Germany, Jenkins Johnson Projects (2019), Sculpture Center (2018), Aspen Museum (2017), Participant Inc. (2017). Khan’s performance has premiered at several locations including Whitney Museum of American Art, Art POP Montreal International Music Festival. Khan recently completed a 6-week performance residency at The Kitchen NYC (2020) and was an artist in residence at Pioneer Works (2018-19), Abrons Art Center (2016-17), an International Travel Fellow to Jerusalem/Ramallah through Apexart (2015), and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2014). Khan is a recipient of the UOVO Artist Prize (2020), BRIC Colene Brown Art Prize and the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2019, granted by both NYSCA/NYFA and Art Matters in 2018.

Their works are part of several public permanent collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim, Kadist, San Francisco, and the Walker Art Center, MN. Khan’s work is published in 4Columns, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Art in America, BOMB, Brooklyn Rail,and TDR Drama Review.

Khan is an adjunct professor of sculpture, performance, and critical theory, and received an M.F.A. from Cornell University (2012) and a B.F.A. from the University of North Texas (2005).

Cleanse: Art & Public Space with Paul Farber & Michelle Angela Ortiz

April 20, 2021
Co-presented by Converge 45, Regional Arts & Culture Council, Portland Art Museum, and Portland Parks Foundation

Paul Farber is Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab, a public art and history studio based in Philadelphia that cultivates and facilitates critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments. The Lab works with artists, students, educators, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on participatory approaches to public engagement and collective memory and to make generational change in the ways art and history live in public. Farber is author of A Wall of Our Own: An American History of the Berlin Wall and co-editor of Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia. He also currently serves as Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design.

Michelle Angela Ortiz is a visual artist, muralist, community arts educator, and filmmaker who uses her art to represent individuals and communities whose histories are often lost or co-opted. For 20 years, she had created community engagement methods that take into account the issues of responsibility, accountability, and ethics within the field of social practice and community arts. From murals to temporary large-scale installations, her public artworks share stories using richly crafted and emotive imagery to claim and transform spaces into a visual affirmation that reveals the strength and spirit of the community.

Jaleesa Johnston is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and arts administrator. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has been the recipient of the AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship and Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency. In addition to her role at the Portland Art Museum as Programs Lead in the Learning and Community Partnerships Department, Johnston also teaches in Foundation, Photography and Video + Sound at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

On York: Terra Incognita

March 30, 2021
Co-Presented by Lewis & Clark College Art Department

Please join artist Alison Saar in conversation with Reiko Hillyer, Associate Professor of History at Lewis & Clark College, and Jess Perlitz, Associate Professor of Art at Lewis & Clark College, to discuss and reimagine historical narratives and possibilities and how they might be given form.

As we think about the conditions and impacts of the public monuments in Portland, including those that have been removed, those that should be built, and how events and people are memorialized, we turn to Alison Saar’s sculpture York: Terra Incognita, dedicated in May 2010 on the Lewis & Clark College campus. York, enslaved by William Clark, was crucial to the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s survival but shared in none of the fame, fortune, or freedom enjoyed by other members of the corps. Saar’s sculpture commemorates an important historical figure and at the same time reckons with the complications of memorializing historical narratives. This panel discussion explores the vulnerability of public art and begin a conversation about transgressive, liberatory, and reflective modes of monument making and public commemoration.

Green Dreams: Liz Ogbu of Studio O

March 19, 2021
Co-presented by The Portland Parks Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Portland Art Museum, and Converge 45.

Liz Ogbu, Studio O, designer, urbanist, racial and spatial justice activist.

In conversation with Manuel Padilla of PSU's National Policy Consensus Center.

A designer, urbanist, and spatial justice activist, Liz is an expert on engaging and transforming unjust urban environments, "looking at what it means to examine the spatial and emotional wounds of the places we inhabit and how we might move towards repair." Her multidisciplinary design and innovation practice, Studio O, works on a wide array of initiatives from designing shelters for immigrant day laborers to developing a Social Impact Protocol for housing initiatives in 44 states.

Re-imagining Portland is part of a series of programs devoted to asking fundamental questions about our city's public spaces:

How can we heal a history of exclusion?
Who and what are our public spaces for?
Who and what should we commemorate?
Can we foster more inclusive forms of commerce and creativity?

Manuel Padilla has worked in peace building, conflict reconciliation, restorative justice, and conducting public dialogue toward culture change. He is a project manager with Oregon Solutions, which brings business, government, and nonprofits to the table to address community needs.