Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Dear Portland

Posted by Christine Weber

Dear Portland: An Exhibition from Humans for Housing

• Exhibition Dates: October 19th – November 23rd
• Opening Reception: Monday, October 19, 12-1pm
• No Place to Grow Old screening: TBA
• Additional events announced soon.
• North View Mobile in the CC Building Hours:
  • Monday – Friday, 8 – 4 pm
•  All events are free and open to the public.

Dear Portland is an immersive storytelling exhibition that shines a light on the lived experiences of many neighbors in the city of Portland who are impacted by the housing crisis. The exhibition is co-curated by Maddie Iem and Davey Schaupp and was first hosted at Stelo Arts earlier this year. Putting human stories behind statistics, Dear Portland aims to inspire compassion, highlight solutions and calls for action on Oregon’s most urgent issue: housing and houselessness. 

 

The exhibition brings together personal narratives, local data, and community-informed perspectives to explore the realities of the housing crisis. Developed by a collaborative team of artists, designers and community members, Dear Portland is centered on lived experiences while offering pathways toward understanding and action. It is designed to be both reflective and participatory, creating space for visitors to listen, learn and consider what a more just and stable future could look like.

Portland has no shortage of ways for people to learn about the housing crisis; articles, policy briefs, townhalls. What the Dear Portland curators identified as missing was somewhere to actually engage with the crisis. They wanted to provide people with a place to see clearly, feel deeply, and move toward action together. The curators came to this work believing that people need somewhere to sit with difficult issues together, not online, not in a comment section or a council chamber, but in a room, next to a neighbor who might see the crisis differently than they do. The curators could not find that room in Portland, so they built it. 

Over the course of the original two month exhibition at Stelo, more than 2,500 people came through Dear Portland. Strangers sat shoulder to shoulder and listened to a neighbor describing life on the street. People cried. They talked to whomever was beside them. And more than 180 people picked up a pen and wrote to their Metro councilor. Some took this action for the first time in their lives.

And now this room for dialogue, for listening and for action around the housing crisis is coming to Portland Community College. This edition of the traveling exhibition is a collaboration between the Center for Civic Engagement and the North View Mobile, an impermanent version of the North View Gallery that will activate different locations on the Sylvania campus during a two year renovation of the gallery and the building in which it is located. 

About the Humans for Housing:

Humans for Housing believes that every human has inherent worth and has a right to stable and safe housing. Through powerful storytelling, education and community engagement, they aim for a future where everyone has a safe and stable place to lay their head at night. Learn more at humansforhousing.org.