MEMBERS PATRONS

RE:IMAGINE ARTIST FUND CENTERS ARTISTS IN REIMAGINING NEW WAYS OF ENGAGING WITH ART

Earlier this year, the Museum and Northwest Film Center announced the continuation of the Re:Imagine Artist Fund, which launched in 2020 and supported artists through direct relief and sustainability grants at the start of the pandemic. This phase of the Fund provides expanded, equitable financial support for artists developing new projects and programs that engage with the issues of our time. The Re:Imagine Artist Fund was created in 2020 as a reaction to the pressures of the pandemic on artists in Portland and Southwest Washington. In initial phases of the Fund, the Museum and Film Center provided relief grants of $2,000 for 25 artists demonstrating severe economic need and $5,000 sustainability grants for 20 artists who are pivoting their practices toward greater impact and innovation. The grant programs aimed to center BIPOC, LGBTQ+ artists and artists living with disabilities who had been most impacted during the months of COVID-19 shutdown, and over 80 percent of the funding went to artists who self-identified as such.

Through our current programming efforts, the Artist Fund has supported a number of programs, exhibitions, and partnerships. This past spring, we kicked off this phase of the Artist Fund with Epic Ephemera, a digital art installation series curated by Mobile Projection Unit (Fernanda D’Agostino and Sarah Turner), and the Film Center funded BIPOC filmmakers, storytellers, and new media artists as part of a new experimental series of multimedia workshops and classes called Co:Laboratory. The Fund also supported the Film Center’s Cinema//Care, a program that reinforces a commitment to care and community through the programming of independent films at art houses and festivals.

In addition to new projects and programs, the Artist Fund has supported continued and evolving partnerships like the residency with The Numberz FM, a radio station committed to Black music for Black Portland (see page 20). Another partnership that dates back decades is the Museum and Film Center’s connection to educators, and over the summer the Fund helped to support collaborative conversations around the role and future of monuments and public space through two programs—

Re-imagining Portland: Parks, Public Space,

Memory, Creativity, and Spatial Justice, and

Memory and Public Space: An Educator

UnConference. On the horizon are more projects that champion the work that artists do in our community, including VR to Go this fall (see page 27), a program where audiences check out and gain access to pre-loaded virtual-reality headsets with immersive stories, and next year Black Artists of Oregon (see page 17), an exhibition that will highlight and celebrate the work of Black artists in Oregon. The Artist Fund will also provide seed funding for Spencer Garland, founder and creative director of BRENDA ARTS, and his team to launch a yearlong series of bimonthly videos that uses works on view and in the Museum’s collection to teach media literacy for high school ages and up through a Black art history and Afrofuturist lens.

Amid the uncertainty of the pandemic, the Museum and Film Center remain committed to supporting artists and collaborating directly to create ongoing paths for local artists to live in, and share their talents with, our community. Major funding for the Re:Imagine Artist Fund is made possible by the Museum’s Art Gym endowment, a restricted endowment established with support from the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation, and grants from Tim and Mary Boyle, The Collins Foundation, Kirk and Cynthia Day, and longtime artist advocate Sarah Miller Meigs.

PARTNERSHIP & PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

Ansel Adams in Our Time programs: After starts and stops due to pandemic closures and restrictions, this past summer’s Ansel Adams in Our Time exhibition provided a much-needed boost of energy and excitement for Museum visitors. Beyond the photographs on the walls, programs featuring community members and local artists provided additional context around our place in the outdoors. Programs included This Land, an open-air screening and Q&A with filmmaker Faith E. Briggs about BIPOC representation in outdoor spaces; “Claiming Connection,” a panel discussion about cultivating a relationship with place as disabled artists; and Postcards to the Earth, an installation of student art as part of our annual Portland Public Schools K-12 student arts showcase, The HeART of Portland.

Carmelo Anthony donates $100,000 prize

to support Black Art and Experiences: Earlier this summer, former Portland Trail Blazers star Carmelo Anthony was named the winner of the first Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion award. In recognition of this honor, Mr. Anthony was given the opportunity to choose a nonprofit to receive a $100,000 contribution from the NBA, and he selected the Portland Art Museum’s Black Art and Experiences initiative. Learn more about the donation and the Black Art and Experiences initiative on our blog, nwfc.pam.org.

See Me. iAm. HEAR: A Creative Activation

of Youth Voices of Color: The Museum collaborated with the City of Portland’s “Supporting Community Healing with Art” initiative and other partners to transform the Madison Plaza into a vibrant, creative space activated by and for youth. The July event centered the ways in which community healing can be realized when youth are empowered to lead, create, dream, and express themselves through art. Partners included The Numberz. FM, I AM M.O.R.E., IPRC, A Beat Happening, and NAYA Many Nations Academy. The Northwest Film Center announced filmmakers Masami Kawai and Reed Harkness as the Oregon Media Media Arts Fellowship recipients for 2021. The Fellowship is an award given every other year for filmmakers who have shown a commitment to the moving-image arts and pushing their practice with new and engaging work. The program is funded by the Oregon Arts Commission and administered by the Northwest Film Center.

Conversations about public space,

monuments, and memory: The Museum partnered with cultural institutions throughout Oregon to present “Memory and Public Space: An Educator UnConference,” a series of live events and an ongoing resource guide exploring how we use public space to remember. The series invites educators and students to participate in this vital conversation where questions of public space, history, politics, and art converge.

Art and Writing During the Pandemic: Celebrating the Write Around Portland

Partnership: As an organization, Write Around Portland works to change lives through the power of writing and to use that power of writing in community to create more just, humane, and kind communities. Join in on our popular weekly Write Around PAM writing prompts on our social media channels and our blog, nwfc.pam.org. The Museum and Film Center expanded our podcast, Art Unbound, during the pandemic, and have partnered with many artists and community organizations, in addition to professionals from the art and new media world. In the episode “Everything Was Quiet and Everything Was Boards,” The Numberz FM speaks with the artist who started the painting at the Apple store downtown. In partnership with Portland Public Schools and OK YOU and with generous support from the Oregon Community Foundation, the Museum collaborated on Journal On!, a project that offers prompts, workshops, and inspiration for youth to contribute to an enduring art journal of these times.

Learn more about these partnerships and programs on our blog at nwfc.pam.org/ community-update-september-2021.

Get with the Programs!

There’s always something new to enjoy at the Museum and Film Center. For the latest on virtual programs, pop-up happenings, and ongoing offerings such as our lunchtime Artful Meditation sessions, subscribe to our email newsletter and check our online calendar at portlandartmuseum.org.