Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Wellspring: Humanities and Arts During Covid-19, Late-Summer Issue

Posted by Andrew Cohen

“A people also perish when they fail to keep alive the values that make them human, the wellsprings of their sanity.”  —Ben Okri

We hope that you and your loved ones are well. Our August newsletter brings into focus the remarkable talents of our community—students and faculty alike—as well as some arts and humanities events from around the country.

PCC’s Humanities and Arts Highlights

• We are delighted to share news of History and Women’s and Gender Studies Instructor and HARTS Council member Andrea Lowgren’s new book, The Reasons We’re Here: Oral
• Histories of Immigration at Portland Community College. The book, which came out last spring, consists of a “series of oral histories of immigration rooted in the people of Portland Community College.” You can read more about Andrea and her work in this blogpost on the HARTS website and access the book itself. Congratulations Andrea!
• The pandemic has shut down the physical art galleries at PCC for the time being, but many are adjusting to this new reality and displaying art at any rate. To this end, Cascade Campus’ Paragon Arts Gallery is now offering exhibitions in its windows (815 N. Killingsworth) for viewing from the street. The work is also reproduced on the gallery’s website. The gallery looks forward to welcoming you again when things open up. In the meantime, please visit the window exhibition and support business neighbors.
  
• At the end of the last academic year, PCC student Devon Martin made this video for his final project for Video Production III class. This was inspired by his experiences in Being and Knowing taught by Sylvania Philosophy instructor John Farnum. Take some time to enjoy the video and then read an interview with Devon about his background process in creating the video.

Beyond PCC

• In case you missed it, or perhaps didn’t know the PCC connection, Mitchell S. Jackson—the writer from N/NE Portland whose work includes The Residue Years and Survival Math—wrote this New York Times essay about the Portland protests. Mitchell, after graduating from Jefferson, was a student at Cascade and on the editorial staff of our very own Pointed Circle.  He went on to PSU (BA and MFA) and then got his 2nd master’s at NYU where he taught for a good while. According to his website, he is now teaching at University of Chicago.
• As this article explains, the Oregon Ballet Theater has recently released a new digital work titled “Interval” that explores loneliness in the time of the pandemic. Take some time to enjoy the beautiful video.
• The Native Arts and Culture Foundation recently announced a significant land and building reclamation that involved the historic Yale building on SE 10th Street in Portland, a 9,400 square foot space used for the last decade as an art gallery. It has now been transferred to the NACF where it will become their new national headquarters, as well as a home for Native art production and exhibition. The Native Arts and Culture Foundation, which recently named Joy Harjo as Board Chair, “is a Native-led national organization committed to mobilizing Native artists, culture bearers, communities, and leaders to influence positive social, cultural, and environmental change. As such, it focuses on strengthening Native arts, providing artists and the creative community with the resources and tools they need to be successful, and expanding awareness and access to Native knowledge and truth.” To help address the effect of the pandemic on Native artists, they launched their Native Arts Emergency Support Project to provide relief for artists experiencing loss of income and/or illness. You can view a video from a national convening titled Native Arts and Culture: Resilience, Reclamation and Relevance.
• On August 19th from 12-1pm consider joining “Lunch & Learn – A More Beautiful and Terrible History: A History of the Civil Rights Movement for Today” co-sponsored by the Oregon Historical Society and the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. “This program — based on Professor Theoharis’s book, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History — brings to light ways the Civil Rights Movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering and explains how activists embraced an expansive vision of justice that a majority of Americans opposed and which the federal government feared.” This is a virtual program via Zoom, free and open to the public.
• Speaking of the Oregon Historical Society: As part of its Distant Voices series, created to highlight voices of Portland in the context of the pandemic, Kerry Tymchuk, the head of the Oregon Historical Society, was interviewed. In this video he discusses Oregon’s racist past.
• Last but not least, for those of you looking for good reading material for the last stretch of summer, check out this Oregon Literary Arts interview with Kelli Jo Ford, author of Crooked Hallelujah.
  

If you have announcements, news, student or faculty work that you’d like considered for this newsletter, please write directly to harts@pcc.edu.

Past issues

• Issue One of Wellspring
• Issue Two of Wellspring
• Issue Three of Wellspring
• Issue Four of Wellspring
• Issue Five of Wellspring
• Issue Six of Wellspring
• Issue Seven of Wellspring
• Issue Summer Edition I of Wellspring