Thursday, December 7 | 5pm-9pm

Photo by Mario Gallucci

The Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at Pacific Northwest College of Art is excited to invite the public to the December First Thursday Art Walk in the North Park Blocks for exhibition receptions, a film screening, zine & book releases, live music, art installations and refreshments!

On November 4th, Nina Elder and a group of five artists simultaneously drew black holes for an extended period of time.
This performance was an act of collective endurance, creation, and conjuring the void. Through drawing, video, and sound recordings, the tremors and testaments of this experiment endure.

All are invited to join the debut of the film Until It Is Done!

Collaborating Artists:
Hali Autumn, Lucas Cantoni José, Rosie Colette Christoper, Nina Elder, Ebony Frison, Genesis Turris and Laura Quintero Anton.

As part of Nina Elder's CCAC Artist Residency, she has been working collaboratively with Christina Martin (MFA '22) and the PNCA Pub Lab on a special artist zine edition. Circling around optical illusions, inversions, and reciprocity, this zine is a celebration of teaching and learning and changing.

Join us in the public release to celebrate Nina's time with us at PNCA and take home a copy of your own!

With Watershed Center for Print and book wizard Rory Sparks, Nina Elder has created an ambitious variable edition book. Combining several print methods and creative writing, Apop Epoch contemplates beginnings within endings in the social and geologic landscape. 

This is a major collaboration for all involved, and we look forward to unboxing the book together!

The end of the Fall Semester is a special time for select PNCA classes to exhibit what they have been working on in our student gallery spaces – come celebrate the learning and creative ingenuity from:

Soft Sculpture Class – Atrium 
Ecology and Resilience – Holt Project Space
PNCA Transfer Students – 157 Gallery
PNCA Painting Department – Commons Gallery

Artwork by Eva Younkman, Puppy Flowers, 8"x11" Oil on Panel

DJ Mami Miami dreams of nights spent hips swaying in international multi-story discotecas. These days, she gets dance floors moving in Portland, Oregon and beyond as one-part of Noche Libre, the Latinx DJ collective she co-founded in 2017. As the former co-host of a hybrid talk/music show on community radio station XRAY FM, DJ Mami Miami selected a wide variety of genres from Andean cumbias and hip-hop to 1960s oldies, 80’s new wave, and Puerto Rican punk rock. Her sets are always mood-driven, but she specializes in spinning jams pa’ perreando. See past mixes on her Soundcloud and learn more at emillyprado.com or on social media @emillygprado.

Bring some friends, lovers, family, yourself, maybe some strangers to strike your best poses for some stellar portraits with a bit of seasonal flare!

Ash Stone (she/they) is a queer latinx visual artist based in Portland, Oregon. Her work, driven by the transformative power of play, serves as a method of healing and self-discovery. Ash’s creative practice works in tandem with community building, collaboration, and advocacy for art and education accessibility.

Visit Yo’s food & beverage cart in front of PNCA for free coffee and tea to keep you warm as you wander First Thursday in the North Park Blocks.

Then, come inside for more free nibbles and alcoholic and NA beverages!

The Creative Technology Lab is excited to participate in December First Thursday events by projection mapping onto the PNCA building.

We'll be featuring machine learning-driven experimental film and generative graphics by Megan McKissack as well as work by students in Marilyn Zornado's Motion Graphics class.

511 Gallery

Displaying works from Nina's Uplift series

Is the world ending? In a time of social and ecological devastation, I contemplate what it means to be authentically alive during a time rampant with loss.
I embrace uncomfortable paradox, inviting beauty and bewilderment to mingle. These three bodies of work explore different aspects of existing and creating – not only on the edge of the unknown, but engaged, implicated, and enchanted with the void.

- Nina Elder

Ed Cauduro and Dane Nelson Collection Studies Lab +
Dorothy Lemelson Innovation Studio

Solastalgia is a premonition of longing for the present moment from the perspective of an anticipated future. It is the feeling of homesickness before leaving home. What are we experiencing now that we will miss in the future? -- that is the sensation of solastalgia. 

The Solastalgic Archive holds ephemera of memory, creation, forgetting, destruction, preciousness and transience. Contributions have been sourced from a vast array of people, each asked to consider what connects them to time. Unlike other museum collections, the Solastalgic Archive holds deeply personal items as well as things that change or disappear over time. By allowing emotions and ephemerality to displace institutional indifference and contrived permanence, this space enlivens the passage of time. The Archive will evolve over the course of the exhibition and will continue to grow through classroom activities and public workshops.

Ralph Pugay, A Tornado of Dancers, 2023, Acrylic and flashe on canvas, 24"x30"
Image courtesy of Adams and Ollman.

The Black Gallery x Bank of Expensify:
A Black Renaissance Art Auction Benefit for Don’t Shoot Portland – The Black Gallery by DSPDX

Ralph Pugay: The Longest Journey - Adams and Ollman

Ada Trillo: La Caravana del Diablo + Zaharia Cușnir: The Joy to Live – Blue Sky, Oregon Center for Photographic Arts

A Democracy of Images by Stephen Hayes and Look Out by Malia Jensen – Elizabeth Leach Gallery

What the Crow Knows by Rick Bartow – Froelick Gallery

What It Is: A Survey of Blackfish Artist Studios Group Show, Sounds from Tom and Neko  by Gene Flores, and Te Busca Mi Corazon by Angennette Escobar – Blackfish Gallery

Winter Group Exhibition – Laura Vincent Design and Gallery

Tender Paths - Paper + Print Residency Artists’ Work – Stelo Arts

I Will Bring Flowers by Marci Marsden - The Writer’s Block

February 1 
March 7**
April 4** 
May 2**
June 6

(** Expanded special programming at PNCA on these dates)

About CCAC and PNCA
The Center for Contemporary Art & Culture is a platform for cultural production including exhibition, lecture, performance, and publication. Housed within Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA), the Center throws open its doors to the greater public to foster conversation and community. Pacific Northwest College of Art is the leading professional arts and design school in the Northwest; we are the heartbeat of learning and experimentation in Portland’s vibrant cultural ecosystem.
We spark curiosity and sharpen skills so students can build creative careers anchored in innovation, justice and civic imagination.

The Center for Contemporary Art & Culture - 511 NW Broadway - Portland, OR