Last July, when I received confirmation that the Artist in Residence Program had received a green light to go forward, I began making lists of artists – artists whose work I admired, artists whose work consistently seemed to address site and place, and artists who welcomed transparency and community interaction in their work.  It came as no surprise to me to find my long time colleague – visual artist Linda Wysong, on all of these lists. I have known Linda for 20 years and created my first two large-scale site-relevant works in collaboration with her.  We met when I was trying to teach myself about stillness in movement by modeling for visual art classes at PNCA.  She was the teacher and we just got to talking between sittings.  Turns out that we had some very parallel interests and embarked on a collaboration.   Over the years we have worked together on several pivotal projects – Intersection, Finding the Forest and PipeDreams to suggest a few.  Linda’s work is absolutely singular in this community and I have been deeply grateful to have her as a peer and often a kind of mentor.  She makes work that is genre-bending – and has, long before it became so popular to do so.  So, one can imagine my excitement when she was interested in being a guest in the AiR program.  True to her style, she has been preparing for this month for months, carefully researching and forming relationships to support her project – Backyard Conversations.  Comprised of a series of performance tours and video portraits, Linda’s project actively seeks to raise questions and provoke dialogue about how and why we build what we build.  Combining history, science, engineering and the anecdotal, each of the three tour opportunities  – Water: The Machine and the Garden, Constructing Community and Footprints Along the River, invite attendees to experience the South Waterfront district from singular points of view.  The project culminates on Saturday evening, June 28th, with the screening of a series of video portraits representing residents, construction workers and other individuals who work or interact with the neighborhood.  To sign up for a tour, please go to here.

In the last several years, our country’s cultural historians have slowly begun to tell the story of the early Chinese immigrant experience in the U.S.  Denied the opportunity to own land, gain citizenship or transport their families to our mainland, these almost exclusively male Chinese laborers suffered deep hardship, all the while clearing much of the land that is now most prized in our great cities located along the entire stretch of the west coast – Vancouver, B.C. to Los Angeles.  For his May project, AiR guest artist, Horatio Hung-Yan Law -  a native of Hong Kong but New Yorker since the age of 16, will explore how our cities might look and feel differently had the Chinese had more opportunity to assert themselves on the cities that they so painstakingly transformed on behalf of others.  In a three-part installation that traverses both the AiR studio and the South Waterfront neighborhood, Horatio will use common materials that we associate with either a Chinese or Asian lineage – rice, bamboo, chopsticks, t’ai chi – to play with how the South Waterfront district might be different today had the Chinese laborers been able to establish a presence there.  Please join Horatio for his opening reception on Saturday, May 3rd from 11a-2p in the AiR studio, and for the free t’ai chi workshops that accompany his residency in preparation for the T’ai Chi for 1,000 gathering on Saturday, May 31st.  In addition to the workshop on May 3rd during the reception, workshop times include:  May 14th, 10a-noon; May 21st, 6-8p; May 28th, 6-8p. To sign-up, please contact Horatio at: horatiolaw@gmail.com

  

For those of you who didn’t make it down to Adam Kuby’s end-of-month exhibit in March, he has posted the fruits of his residency at his website.  You can click here to see them. The points and the issues they address were informed largely by the input of many, many participants over the month.  Thank you to those of you who participated. The project will continue to evolve, so please let Adam know of other places and other issues you think could be included.  Adam can be contacted at: adam@adamkuby.com.

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   I have long admired the artistic activities of visual artists Maria T.D. Inocencio – a 2x Pollock-Krasner recipient, and Mark R. Smith, represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery.  While partners on the domestic side of life, their individual work – while often installation-based, has taken them each down very separate paths that have not crossed since their very early years in school at Cooper Union in NYC.  Until now!  I am thrilled and honored that they have chosen to collaborate on a project for the South Waterfront.  Each with a history of inviting community participation in the realization of their work, the AiR program offered them an opportunity to explore how a new community comes to know itself – together!  COMPASS, their April project, officially begins on Saturday, April 5th in the AiR studio with a series of workshops that invite hands-on participation with the artists.  COMPASS posits Portland as the center of the world and seeks to “map” the individuals in the community through the collection of a few simple coordinates – height, birth place, gender and the spelling (or re-spelling, in this case) of one’s name.  The resulting object of this data will be the creation of a simple flag for each individual that will be placed outside in the context of the larger installation – a 20′x40′ oval that is literally a map of the world with the South Waterfront neighborhood at its center.   While allowing for anonimity, COMPASS seeks to map who we are and from where we came.   Very family-friendly, all ages and Portlanders are invited to participate in this project.  The workshop is from 11a-2p and repeats again on April 12th, 11a-2p.  The final exhibition of this work will occur on Saturday, April 26th, from 11a-1p.

Last July, when I was beginning the process of inviting artists to submit project proposals for the AiR program’s Monthly Guest Artist series, several artists who I deeply respect told me about a project that an artist fairly new to Portland was incubating.   I was unaware of both the artist and the project but was so fascinated that I had to learn more.  I made a call, set up a time to get together and a few days later shared breakfast with artist Adam Kuby.Adam told me about a lot of projects that he was working on and I told him about the kind of work I was interested in including in the place-making project for the South Waterfront.  We kept coming back to his musings about acupuncture, urban places and the idea of looking at a city as a body in order to evaluate its health.  As a dance artist, patient of Five Elements acupuncture and native Oregonian and Portlander, I allowed my mind to really linger on this image of Portland as a body and the prospect of using the concepts of acupuncture to evaluate its health.  Where, I wondered, would this new SWF neighborhood find itself in this metaphorical body and what would its qi be?  I was fascinated by both the poetry and potential of this image for the city.  We talked about March, the energy of spring and his availability.  July has become March and Adam’s project is now in full swing. Â

 

 

If you missed the gathering or the accumulated installation of Chris Rauschenberg’s project for the South Waterfront, you can click here to see the 60+ images that he captured of the interior life of the neighborhood. Â

When I hear people talk about the South Waterfront district, the conversations most often center on the “green” nature of the architecture, on the development’s proximity to the river, or on the unique access to public transportation found in the tram and streetcar.   Thus far, all of these aspects of the neighborhood have been well documented photographically, particularly the buildings themselves.   Enter the incredible photographic artist, Christopher Rauschenberg, February’s guest artist in the AiR program.  Chris was much more interested in what and who was inside the towers.  As he puts it, the everyday “living and being” of the place.  We queried residents to see if they would let Chris eddying in their homes for an hour or so in order to let him capture the more human side of the development.  What resulted was 12 invitations and 60+ images now on the walls in the AiR studio.  With several residences and a week still to go, the totality of Chris’ portrait of the inside life of the neighborhood is still emerging.  Below find some samplings from early visits.  Please plan on joining us in the studio – Thursday, Feb. 28th, from 6:30-8p, for the culminating exhibit of Chris’ project – Looking at the South Waterfront.      Â

 There stands David on the bank of our city’s great river in the heart of the South Waterfront neighborhood.  In the background, one can spot an osprey nest seemingly floating in the trees on the not-too-distant Ross Island.  In the foreground, culled from a the title of a recent Oates essay, the offering – “what we love will save us.” This is the juxtaposition of wildness and urbanity that David has spent his life as a writer and activist thinking about – how our human world of thinking and feeling connects with the larger world of natural wildness.  And, as is evident from the “where” of this photo, David’s January project for the South Waterfront AiR program – Of Time and the River and the Big Shiny Buildings, continues his exploration of these ideas.  In a series community writing workshops over the month, David has invited interested thinkers to discover, discuss and write the past, present and future history – geologic, social, cultural, political and natural – of the SWF area.   Generous, embodied and in David’s words, “connected” writing has resulted from these collective sessions.  On Wednesday evening, January 30th, in the AiR studio, David and workshop participants will share this work in a form and style that David likens to a three-movement, bebop word symphony – layered, syncopated, bold.  David will also read from a personal work created over his month in the district, two weeks of which he spent as an “insider” living in the Meriwether East.  Please join us at 7p on this evening for dessert and generous literary treats.  

On Saturday, Dec. 22nd, over 125 people taunted the rain and cold by venturing down to the SWF to see Tahni Holt’s – The Party Project.  The fourth artist in the SWF Monthly Guest Artist series, Tahni worked with a cast of 30 volunteer performers, musician/composers Kate O’Brien-Clarke, Corrina Repp and Joe Haege, and lighting designer Bill Boese to create a strolling dance event that caught the only dry spell in nearly two straight days of rain.  If you missed the performance or want to be reminded of some of its beauty, a chronological photo essay follows.  All these photos and the others on AiR page are by Yalcin Erhan, the AiR Program photographer. Folks began to gather at about 3:45p in the Bella Espresso for a 4p show.  While frigid outside, everyone was greeted with hot cider or cocoa to warm their bones.   When critical mass had happened, we moved everyone outside for short introduction.Enough said, let the performance begin!   Space #1  -  A leased but as yet unbuilt-out retail space in the base of Atwater Place.         After a toast and then some breaking of glass (cups not windows), the audience strolled in a caroling-style fashion to site #2 – a second floor balcony on the courtyard of the John Ross plaza.   This time from below, the audience watched the second scene.      At the conclusion of episode two, all were finally invited inside into the Artist in Residence studio for the third and final event, an actual party (birthday).    This is just a glimpse of 30 minutes of stunning performance.  Visit the site again in a few weeks to see video clips from all three sites. 

• Music created and played by: Kate O’Brien-Clarke, Corrina Repp and Joe Haege; Lighting by Bill Boese

• Saturday, Dec. 22nd 4p; one performance only
• South Waterfront neighborhood
• Meet at the Bella Espresso Cafe, 3580 SW River Parkway
• Portland-based dance artist Tahni Holt has been creating The Party Project as part of her month-long residency in the South Waterfront district. Drawn from the cinematic experience of viewing movies on screen, the performance takes place inside three different buildings in the SWF neighborhood – a condominium, an unoccupied retail space and the Artist in Residence studio, and uses the situation of a party to explore the phenomena of watching and being watched.  The performance will be seen through the windows and balconies of these spaces. With hot chocolate or cider in hand, audience will stroll between these sites, watching the performance from the outside. The event will end as a large party/gathering in the AiR studio for the entire “cast” – inside performers and outside observers.  The work has been developed and rehearsed on site in collaboration with a 30-person cast of both experienced dancers and volunteer movers.As research for this event, Holt has spent many of her residency hours in the studio watching movies that contain classic party scenes – Lolita, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Party, 8 1/2, and the list goes on. The project additionally makes reference to the dilemma between the public/private that is so often evident in architecture that incorporates wide expanses of glass surface area that invite and/or allow observation.