First, We Remember. And After?

Join us at the Expo Center for an afternoon of healing and remembering as part of the annual Vanport Mosaic Festival.

Saturday, May 27
12-4pm
Portland Expo Center, Hall A

First, We Remember. And After? seeks to honor the many layered histories that have taken place in the town known as Vanport: land theft, flooding, displacement, and incarceration that have affected the Indigenous, Black, Japanese, Japanese Americans, and Vanport communities. Many people in Portland still do not know these histories. Once you become aware, what happens next?

Currently, Oregon Metro is developing a process to envision a new use of the Expo Center and the surrounding 53 acres of land. Will Metro’s plans truly center the justice and healing this land cries out for? Let us weave our voices together, stronger in their diversity, to preserve this place as a site of conscience and to demand that the future of this place is by and for communities.

Please join us at the Portland Expo center to participate in this site-specific installation on Saturday, May 27th from 12 – 4 pm. This work is one among several gorgeous offerings by artists and creatives dedicated to this work from Japanese American Museum of Oregon, Colloqate, and artists Sia Hanna, Tonya Abernathy, and daniela del mar.

Event activities include community altar, performance, song, story circle, film, and blackberry tea meditations. The “First, we remember. And After?” installation made in collaboration by Colloqate and artists daniela del mar and sia hanna will be open for collective dreaming from open to closing. Please join us to add your voice to the installation.

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