^{Collage of artwork (left to right, top to bottom): Claudia McNellis, “Not a Collage”, 2023, acrylic on paper, 11×14”; Grace Pendergrass, “Succulent”, 2023, glazed ceramic body, 2x 5.5 x 1-1.75”; Mehdi Gassi, “The Thinking”, 2024, screenprint and gold leaves on paper, 12×12”; Adriel Maneely, “Something Witchy”, 2023, alcohol marker, ink, and colored pencil on paper, 18×24.5”; Alicia Seale, “Self Help”, 2024, silkscreen 10×12”; JoJo Ruby, “Salted Butt”, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 24×36”; Fatimah Hobaish, “Vimto”, 2023, ceramic, 5x2x2.5”; Goldie Goldberg, “Lloyd Center”, 2023, digital photography, 14”x20”; Kymberleigh Olivas, “His Smile”, 2024, acrylic paint on canvas board, 16”x20”.}

Making Our Mark

Recent artwork by С��è��ý Students

• Exhibition locations & dates:

  • Paragon Gallery – May 8 – June 1
  • Helzer Gallery – May 13 – June 7
  • North View Gallery – May 20 – June 13

• Awards reception and conversations with jurors

  • Paragon Gallery – May 29, 4-7 pm
  • Helzer Gallery – May 30, 5-7 pm
  • North View Gallery – June 8, 12-2 pm

The С��è��ý Art Galleries are pleased to present our 4th Annual District-Wide Art Student Exhibition — Making Our Mark: С��è��ý Art Student Exhibition 23|24. This year students who took art classes at all four of our college campuses, at our centers and in our remote classrooms were invited to submit their art and participate in our collective exploration of what it means to make your mark.

Students were asked to select a С��è��ý gallery, then each gallery worked with a juror, who chose the student work to be displayed in that gallery. Guest juror Michelle Ross, selected art for the Helzer Gallery, Sarah Farahat selected art for the Paragon Gallery and Taravat Talepasand selected art for the North View Gallery. Each gallery will also host a reception featuring a conversation with their juror and awards announcements.

Making Our Mark provides a platform for reflecting on what it means to make a mark, in graphite, in clay, in oil, in metal, in pixels and all of the other materials С��è��ý students employ. By bringing the varied marks we make into dialogue with each other, Making Our Mark, also considers the impact С��è��ý art students can have through the art they make and the way they show up to support each other. To honor all students who made art in С��è��ý art classes this year, our 4th annual college-wide Art Student Exhibition invites us to celebrate the diversity of voices that have come together to make their marks.

This year you can visit the exhibition in-person at three of our С��è��ý art galleries then join us for one or all of the awards receptions and conversations with our jurors on Wednesday, May 29 at 4pm with Sarah Farahat in the Paragon Gallery, Thursday, May 30 at 5pm with Michelle Ross in the Helzer Gallery and Saturday, June 8 at 12:00 pm with Taravat Talepasand in the North View Gallery.

About the guest jurors

Helzer Gallery | Bio for Michelle Ross

Michelle Ross is an Associate Professor and Interim Department Head of Painting at Willamette University’s Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). Her formal and abstract painting, as well as digital collages, have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (Boston, Massachusetts), The Art Gym at Marylhurst University (Marylhurst, OR), Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR) and Rome International University (Rome, Italy). Her work resides in several collections, including the Portland Art Museum (Portland, OR), Rhode Island School of Design Special Collections (Providence, RI) and the Four Seasons Hotel (Abu Dhabi, UAE), among others. In 2012, Ross was named as a Hallie Ford Fellow in the Visual Arts. She is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, Oregon.

Paragon Gallery | Bio for Sarah Farahat

Sarah Farahat is a transdisciplinary Egyptian American* cultural worker, abolitionist, and educator dreaming of a more collective future for all beings. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Occidental College, a B.F.A. in Intermedia Studies from PNCA and an M.F.A. from California College of the Arts. She trained in auricular acupuncture at the historic Lincoln Recovery Center in the Bronx and on the coattails of the Arab “spring” she participated in Beirut’s Homeworkspace program. She teaches art at local colleges, for kids in her community, is a member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and co-founder of the SWANA Rose Culture and Community Center. For the past sixteen years Farahat has monitored the body within the socio-political landscape in the US and abroad-intervening with works exploring grief, connection, assimilation, storytelling and engagement. Participating in grassroots struggles inform her work. She finds joy in reading speculative fiction, talking with plants, cooking, and dj-ing. 

Her work lives in protests, archives, public and digital spaces and is in the permanent collections of the Arab American National Museum, JustSeeds Collective, the Charles Voorhies Library, The Palestine Poster Project and The Center for the Study of Political Graphics.  She is featured in publications including Art Forum, The Oregonian, L’Orient Le Jour, & The Daily Star. As a nomadic child of diaspora, Farahat plants portals through taste, smell, and sound while continually attempting to live in reciprocity with the land wherever she creates home. 

*she grapples with an appropriate way to name her location amidst the ongoing legacies of harm to land and people by colonialist projects

North View Gallery | Bio for

Taravat Talepasand (she/her) is an artist, activist, and educator whose labor-intensive interdisciplinary painting practice questions normative cultural behaviors within contemporary power imbalances. As an Iranian-American woman, Talepasand explores the cultural taboos that reflect on gender apartheid and political authority as her approach to subversive joy.  

Taravat Talepasand has exhibited nationally and internationally and is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, de Young Museum, Yerba Buena Center of the Arts, Tufts University, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and the Orange County Museum of Art. Exhibitions included In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, طراوت | TARAVAT at the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts and Macalester College in Minnesota, 2018 Bay Area Now 8 exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center of the Arts, the 2010 California Biennial, and was the recipient of the 2010 Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute. She is a featured artist in Different Sames: New Perspectives in Contemporary Iranian Art, edited by Hossein Amirsadeghi and the Documentary Pearls on The Ocean Floor by Robert Adanto. Taravat was the Department Chair of Painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and currently lives in Oregon and is the Assistant Professor of Art Practice and Director of Studio MFA at Portland State University Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design. Taravat received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2001 and MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2006.

About the С��è��ý art galleries

С��è��ý is home to four art galleries: the Helzer Gallery, the North View Gallery, the Paragon Arts Gallery, and the Southeast Gallery, each located on one of our four comprehensive campuses in Portland, Oregon. The art galleries are dedicated to supporting education and community building through the arts.

Funding for student awards was generously provided by HARTS (The Humanities and Arts Initiative) along with the Art Student Supplies Fund through the I Heart Art project and the Associated Students of С��è��ý (ASС��è��ý).

Doors & activities at 5PM, screening begins at 6PM with Q&A to follow

• Location: CLIMB Center | 1626 SE Water Avenue, Portland, OR 97214

center map������map of accessible features

A New Documentary by G Chesler |

A work-in-progress screening with G. Chesler of their documentary. In this event, viewers will watch the film as a work in progress, and are invited to participate in discussion about building a documentary with and for trans and queer people. Viewers will be invited to reflect on their own pandemic experiences and consider community, health, and connection in this era.

Note: Masks will be required and provided for this event.

The Film

In an airborne pandemic when separation, isolation, and self-sufficiency became the punishing norm, many trans and genderqueer people face the COVID-19 era differently. G. Chesler’s new documentary feature presents eight portraits of trans, postgender, and genderqueer people who share their experiences of cultivating, sustaining, and joining communities in this pandemic. These trans community creators center experiences of Asian American people facing violent racism as the pandemic began in late 2019, Black Americans rising in opposition to white supremacist police-state violence in mid 2020, and the exclusion many people who are disabled feel from a society that—despite grave and massive loss—still refuses to habitually protect itself at large.

G. Chesler’s film highlights how COVID-19 and Long COVID have impacted trans people disproportionately. This is not a new story for a community that faces violent loss, less access to health care, criminalization, and whose freedoms are legislatively restricted by transphobes forcefully. But it is one that must be heard and understood. Trans and queer people have built a culture undergirded by mutual aid. This became a model for resilience and care in the pandemic for those who listened.

May this film be a conduit for that history.

May it also foster space and reflection by trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, and queer viewers of their own experiences in this time.

G. directs and produces this film as a transgender nonbinary disabled queer person, primarily for other queer and trans folx. They work with a crew of artists across the US who are all queer, genderqueer, nonbinary, and predominantly trans. Their approach echoes G.’s documentary feature “Period: The End of Menstruation,” which wove a similar portrait based tapestry. G.’s 20+ year career of filmmaking around themes of the body, gender, health, and racial justice informs their choices in making this documentary through a practice centering consent, sustainability, and health.

The Filmmaking Team

G Chesler Director/Producer

Director and Producer G.Chesler (they/them) G is a white trans genderqueer disabled filmmaker, living in Portland, Oregon. They direct and produce documentary and narrative films addressing sexuality, the body, gender and racial justice. G. (aka Giovanna) is a 2023 PGA Create Fellow for their work Producing Intersex Justice by Aubree Bernier-Clarke, a feature documentary on intersex activist Pidgeon Pagonis. G. also serves as Producer of Impact, Distribution, and Marketing for Outliers and Outlaws by Director Courtney Hermann about the migration of hundreds of lesbians to Eugene Oregon from the 1960s-1980s.

G.’s previous film projects include Producing Out in the Night which premiered on PBS and LOGO networks simultaneously, and opened the United Nation’ Free+Equal Campaign combatting homophobia and transphobia worldwide. Out in the Night went on to win 15 awards internationally and is distributed by New Day Films. G.’s most recent fiction film is their short rom com The Pick Up about a sullen teen taking a wrong turn home from swim practice screened far and wide, that won Best Short Film at Cineffable Paris and image+nation Montreal, Best Screenplay (Jury Prize) at Big Muddy Film Festival, and streams online through distributor Gonella Productions.

This year G. served as an Advisor to filmmakers in the inaugural ITVS / NEH Humanities Fellowship in Documentary Development and are a recipient of a Regional Arts and Culture Council grant for Connection | Isolation. They teach documentary production, fiction screenwriting, and directing remotely at George Mason University.

Crew Bios

The Cinematography by credit is shared by many talented trans and queer image-makers across the US including (they/them) DP of Framing Agnes and director of Intersex Justice and , (he/they), Meagan Arnold (she/her), and (she/her).

Eli Haan – Editor (they/them) Eli works between music video, documentary, fiction and commercial projects, Their work as our Editor strengthens the emotional arcs and abstract expressions in each portrait. Eli’s work of note includes the co-directed and co-edited short documentary , that follows Mercy Shammah—founder of local nonprofit —on her journey to reimagine Oregon’s outdoor adventure community. This film centers Mercy’s experience as a queer African American woman who is challenging the stereotype of an outdoorist while living in one of the whitest cities in the USA. Her journey towards creating an inclusive outdoors is one of sacrifice that requires endurance as well as audacity. Luckily, Mercy is undeniably—and unyieldingly—driven to thrive.

Lazer Selvera Associate Producer

Lazer Selvera – Associate Producer + Researcher (he/she/they) is a Latine, transgender person living in Chicago. Lazer spent most of his life in northwest Arkansas, was born in Texas, and lived in various states across the Southern US. Lazer is a graduate of the Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies concentration in Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. Their research and focus centers on trans studies, Southern studies, and making academia accessible through the creative arts. Lazer’s recent short film, “Ones & Zeros” is a commentary on the gender limitations of video game character creation.

Dani Taylor Assoc Prod + Editing

Dani Taylor – Associate Producer, Researcher + Additional Editing (they/them) is a nonbinary Asian American filmmaker living in Hong Kong, who was born in China and studied filmmaking in Northern Virginia. They have drifted between various locations and cultures for their entire life. Because of Dani’s mixed cultural background, they are especially interested in the intersections between cultures and identities. Dani’s most recent work is a documentary short about their mother’s experiences marrying a white American man, and raising bi-racial, bi-national children. The film “Untitled Mom Doc” premiered at the DC Asian Pacific American film festival and screened at the DC Shorts Online Festival and Doc Youth Doc Short festival in Astoria, Queens. Dani has worked as an Assistant Editor at Modern Education Digital Media Limited in Hong Kong. They are a recent graduate of the Film and Video Studies program at George Mason University (with honors).

Kai Tillman Sound

Kai Tillman – Production Sound Mixer (he/they) Kai’s award-winning short films include the incredible fiction film Hey Man (2022) about a queer transmasculine person who starts driving for a rideshare company to pay for top surgery and the intimate cross-border documentary Por Ellas (2012) virtually reuniting a mother in the US with her daughters in rural Mexico, amongst other shorts. Their astute field recording includes shorts and features in fiction and documentary, commercials and television. Kai is part of , mentoring and training homeless and marginalized youth to be directors of their own films and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Luka Fisher Composer

Luka Fisher – Composer (she/her) Luka Fisher is a queer woman of the trans experience. She is an artist, composer and cultural producer known for her work with queer musicians and performance artists. She holds an MFA in photo/media and integrated media from CalArts.  Her music has been featured on compilations from Delusional Records, Springstoff, Dublab, and Silber Records. She served as an associate producer and actress in Lyle Kash’s majority trans cast and crew feature film Death and Bowling. Together with Kyler O’Neal she wrote music for Invertigo Dance Company’s interdisciplinary trans performance Walk The Walk in 2023. Most recently she has been the producer and music supervisor for “The Lovers” a queer web series by Daviel Shy that explores intimacy and community during the early days of the pandemic.

Grey Copeland Researcher

Grey Copeland – Researcher + Graphic Designer (they/he) is an African American nonbinary person living in southern Virginia and attends George Mason University in northern Virginia for a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design and language credit in Korean.  Grey has worked for a department at VHC Health as a Graphic Designer making presentations and advertising collateral. They produce freelance commissions in 2D Illustration and graphic design for various clients. Grey’s inspiration derives from films, science fiction books, comics, horror, and fantasy video games, like Dungeon and Dragons, storytelling by Neil Gaiman, the music of David Bowie, and films of Steven Spielberg. Grey is launching a webtoon comic called, “Hollow Hives” which will be a futuristic world where a found family of LGBTQ+ characters go through conflicts to keep their home safe from a broken society.

Aubree Bernier-Clarke Camera

Aubree Bernier-Clarke (they/them) is a Cinematographer and Director based in Portland Oregon whose work consistently explores themes of gender, queerness, and social justice. As a Cinematographer, Aubree has lensed several features, series, and short films, most recently the award-winning “Framing Agnes” (dir. Chase Joynt) that premiered at Sundance 2022, winning both NEXT Innovator and NEXT Audience awards. As a director, their documentary short A Normal Girl (2019) about intersex activist Pidgeon Pagonis premiered at BFI Flare in London, won the Grand Jury Award at the United Nations Association Film Festival, and screened at the American Pavilion at Cannes Film Festival. In 2022, Aubree was selected as an ITVS Humanities Documentary Development Fellow, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, to develop and Direct a feature based on their short titled (G is producing their film).

Tomasz Gęza is a queer Cinematographer based in New York City, all the way from a small town in Poland. In his work, Tomasz focuses on amplifying the voices of marginalized communities, and uses our world’s natural landscapes as the central backdrop of his storytelling. He hopes to share the beauty that lies beyond the gray concrete, showing us the wonderful, twisted, diverse and magical nature of this world, and that no one is ever truly alone.

Emilia Quinton Color/Finishing

Emilia Quinton Colorist Falling into film from a career as an advertising copywriter, Emilia understands the power of words and images when they come together in engaging stories. Her work has spanned a plethora of narrative short films, documentaries, commercials and photography and her films include (made with Eli) and . Her personal work explores the challenge of navigating complex identities and social systems. Emilia takes inspiration from her formative years living and working within the quiet beauty of the Pacific Northwest. She loves dogs and chocolate and getting the perfect shot at golden hour.

• Date: Friday, April 26, 5-9pm
  • Screening begins at 6pm, Q&A discussion to follow
• Location: С��è��ý, CLIMB Center, 1626 SE Water Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97214

In this event, viewers will watch the film as a work in progress and are invited to participate in a discussion about building a documentary with and for trans and queer people. Viewers will be invited to reflect on their own pandemic experiences and consider community, health, and connection in this era.

Masks will be required and provided.

In an airborne pandemic when separation, isolation, and self-sufficiency became the punishing norm, many trans and genderqueer people face the COVID-19 era differently. G. Chesler’s new documentary feature presents eight portraits of trans, postgender, and genderqueer people who share their experiences of cultivating, sustaining, and joining communities in this pandemic. These trans community creators center experiences of Asian American people facing violent racism as the pandemic began in late 2019, Black Americans rising in opposition to white supremacist police-state violence in mid-2020, and the exclusion many people who are disabled feel from a society that –despite grave and massive loss – still refuses to habitually protect itself at large.

G. Chesler’s film highlights how COVID-19 and Long COVID have impacted trans people disproportionally. This is not a new story for a community that faces violent loss, less access to health care, criminalization, and whose freedoms are legislatively restricted by transphobes forcefully. But it is one that must be heard and understood. Trans and queer people have built a culture undergirded by mutual aid. This became a model for resilience and care in the pandemic for those who listened.

May this film be a conduit for that history.

May it also foster space and reflection by trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, and queer viewers of their own experiences in this time.

About the director

G. directs and produces this film as a transgender nonbinary disabled queer person, primarily for other queer and trans folx. They work with a crew of artists across the US who are all queer, genderqueer, nonbinary, and predominantly trans. Their approach echoes G.’s documentary feature “Period: The End of Menstruation,” which wove a similar portrait-based tapestry. G.’s 20+ year career of filmmaking around themes of the body, gender, health, and racial justice informs their choices in making this documentary through a practice centering on consent, sustainability, and health.

The Furin Project Symposium

The Furin Project Symposium is the culmination of APANO Catalyst artist Midori Hirose’s year-long community and place-making art project.

This event is free and open to the public.

Furin Project brochure

• Event: Furin Project Symposium, Celebrating Place and Community
• Date: Friday, May 5, 2023
• Time: 4-7pm
• Location: This event involves a short walking tour – maps will be provided! We are starting at the С��è��ý Southeast Campus Learning Garden at 2305 SE 82nd Ave, and ending at APANO, 8188 SE Division Street, Portland, OR 97206

And…If you are interested in being a part of this amazing event we are looking for volunteers Go to the .

Event background and purpose

In collaboration with the �����Ի���, Midori Hirose’s Furin Project involves honoring the history and legacy of the Japanese American Farming community. This year-long community art and place-making project engages contemporary questions on how the longstanding local Orchards of SE 82nd Ave. and the surrounding area continue to serve as sites of community nourishment.

For this project, Midori researched the history and current landscape of the area, including but not limited to the Japanese American farming history of the area, the fruiting trees, and С��è��ý’s role as a community site. Her focus is the intersection of the current social landscape of the area in relation to food and resilience, farming, and green spaces. She has worked in collaboration with several organizations since the project’s inception: ;��;��;��;��; and С��è��ý (С��è��ý) SE, Rock Creek, Cascade, and Sylvania Campus – GIS, Music and Sonic Arts, New Media Coding, Learning Garden, Community-Based Learning, English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), Photography, and the Ceramics Department;  and a workshop study of pigment to clay applications with 

Midori Hirose’s Furin Project is a series of free ceramic bell-making workshops that invite the public to introduce interpretations of Furin, Japanese “wind bells,” which historically were hung from trees in Japan. The project was conceived with the goal of building community connections and engaging in discussions about Indigenous stewardship, past and present, and future of the southeast Portland area. A collaborative sound mapping project is also in the works with С��è��ý students and faculty in the Geographic Information System (GIS), Music and Sonic Arts, and New Media Coding departments. These sounds are in the process of being collected by ringing each bell as well as through a sound survey. Attached is a QR flyer with more information about the  The sounds will be exhibited as an interactive installation.

* Face masks are required indoors at APANO.

Begins on May 5, 2023, pen during symposium event

The exhibition continues through June 9,  2023. Check our for gallery/viewing hours.

Additional programming

• First Friday Southeast Art Walk, galleries open
  • June 2, 5-7pm
  • С��è��ý Southeast SCOM 120 and first-floor lobby
• Closing reception for the Furin Project and Capturing Community GIS collaboration
  • June 9, 5-7pm
  • С��è��ý Southeast SCOM 120 first-floor lobby

Information

This data collection survey was created in collaboration with artist Midori Hirose’s Furin Project, a celebration of community, collaboration, and history, in particular, the Japanese American farming communities in Southeast Portland. Place is strongly tied to perception and certain locations can evoke feelings of community past and present. We are hoping this survey will help tell the stories about the places we move through every day.

Capturing Community – Data Collection Survey

This data collection survey is part of Midori Hirose’s Furin Project, a celebration of community, collaboration, and history, in particular, the Japanese American farming in Southeast Portland.

Place is strongly tied to perception and certain locations can evoke feelings of community past and present. We are hoping this survey will help tell the stories about the places we move through everyday.

Installed in the NE Corner of the SCOM building, a temporary annex of the Southeast Art Gallery – the entrance faces SE 82nd and is accessible through the SCOM lobby or from the street.

Check open gallery hours by going to our .

• Dates: April 10 – June 9, 2023
• Location: С��è��ý Southeast Art Gallery, SCOM lobby

In collaboration with the �����Ի���, Midori Hirose’s Furin Project involves honoring the history and legacy of the Japanese American Farming community. This year-long community art and place-making project engages contemporary questions on how the longstanding local Orchards of SE 82nd Ave. and the surrounding area continue to serve as sites of community nourishment.

For this project, Midori researched the history and current landscape of the area, including but not limited to the Japanese American farming history of the area, the fruiting trees, and С��è��ý’s role as a community site. Her focus is the intersection of the current social landscape of the area in relation to food and resilience, farming, and green spaces. She has worked in collaboration with several organizations since the project’s inception: ;��;��;��;��; and С��è��ý (С��è��ý) SE, Rock Creek, Cascade, and Sylvania Campus – GIS, Music and Sonic Arts, New Media Coding, Learning Garden, Community-Based Learning, English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), Photography, and the Ceramics Department;  and a workshop study of pigment to clay applications with 

Midori Hirose’s Furin Project is a series of free ceramic bell-making workshops that invite the public to introduce interpretations of Furin, Japanese “wind bells,” which historically were hung from trees in Japan. The project was conceived with the goal of building community connections and engaging in discussions about Indigenous stewardship, past and present, and the future of the southeast Portland area. A collaborative sound mapping project is also in the works with С��è��ý students and faculty in the Geographic Information System (GIS), Music and Sonic Arts, and New Media Coding departments. These sounds are in the process of being collected by ringing each bell as well as through a sound survey. Attached is a QR flyer with more information about the The sounds will be exhibited as an interactive installation in the Southeast Art Gallery temporary Annex, also in the SCOM building in the NE corner.

Capturing Community – Geospatial Info Systems (GIS) collaboration with Midori Hirose

May 5 – June 9, 2023, open during the symposium event

Contact the Southeast Art Gallery for class tours and information sessions by appointment

We are interested in hosting your classes, students, and communities. Please reach out to make an appointment: kim.manchester@pcc.edu.

This data collection survey is part of Midori Hirose’s Furin Project, a celebration of community, collaboration, and history, in particular, the Japanese-American farming in southeast Portland. Place is strongly tied to perception and certain locations can evoke feelings of community past and present. We are hoping this survey will help tell the stories about the places we move through every day.

Capturing Community – Data Collection Survey

This is part of Midori Hirose’s Furin Project, a celebration of community, collaboration, and history, in particular, the Japanese American farming in southeast Portland.

Place is strongly tied to perception and certain locations can evoke feelings of community past and present. We are hoping this survey will help tell the stories about the places we move through every day.

Installed in the NE Corner of the SCOM building, a temporary annex of the Southeast Art Gallery – the entrance faces SE 82nd and is accessible through the SCOM lobby or from the street.

The Furin Project Symposium

4-7pm, Friday, May 5, 2023

To register for this event, please visit

The Furin Project Symposium is the culmination of APANO Catalyst artist Midori Hirose’s year-long community and place-making art project.

This event is free and open to the public.

Location: This event involves a short walking tour – maps will be provided! We are starting at the С��è��ý Southeast Campus Learning Garden at 2305 SE 82nd Ave, and ending at APANO, 8188 SE Division Street, Portland, OR 97206

An exhibition of these bells and sounds will be held at the С��è��ý (С��è��ý) Southeast Art Gallery from April – May 2023, with a Symposium on Friday, May 5, 2023, that will entail a tour of the С��è��ý grounds, the Capturing Community interactive project from GIS students, workshops, and potluck to follow at APANO.

* Face masks are required indoors at APANO.

Additional Programming

• First Friday Southeast art walk – galleries open
  • June 2, 5-7pm
  • С��è��ý Southeast SCOM 120 and first-floor lobby
• Closing reception
  • June 9, 5-7pm
  • Furin Project and Capturing Community GIS Collaboration
  • С��è��ý Southeast SCOM 120 and first-floor lobby

• Dates: February 27 – March 22

Visual Decadence is an homage to the visual history of the (South West Asian and North African) region and its contributions to design. The art and architecture from this area are formal, ornate, and visually decadent. Just like our visual history, this body of work is not just an homage to the grid, form, and color, it is the visual manifestation of indulgence, and how that lineage is shape-shifting on a different territory and timeline. This body of work uses formal tools of the past to disrupt the present and challenges Western notions and constructs of the term “decorative”. It is intended to display how these elements have personal significance to the artist and how they can form their own visual language and identity.

Additional Programming

Opening reception with the artist

• Thursday, March 2, 2023
• 4-6pm

Celebrate color progressions in gouache on a large and small scale, iterative and cumulative. Set within the comfortable and intimate lounge area of the Southeast Art Gallery, get up close and personal with this work. Music and refreshments will be provided. All are welcome.

Regress: Color and Grids – A Workshop with Artist Zeinab Saab

• Tuesday, March 14, 2023
• 12-2:30pm

Zeinab Saab is asking folks to come and engage their hands, eyes, and fingertips in working with color and the grid in ways that put our visual and tactile experiences first. A little regression never hurt, going back to the beginning, when pure enjoyment and delight drove which colors, patterns and palettes drew us.

Bring your own supplies or choose from what is provided – we will have materials on hand and welcome your contributions. All levels are encouraged and welcomed. are encouraged so we will have material for everyone!

• Follow us on Instagram: @se-gallerypdx

About the artist

Originally from Dearborn, Michigan, is currently based in Portland, Oregon. Their current work focuses on the exploration of the inner child through color theory and the grid. They received their BFA in Printmaking from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH in 2015, and completed their MFA in Printmaking at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL in 2019. Their work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in San Francisco, St. Louis, Detroit, New York, California, Dubai, New Mexico, and Hawaii among other places, and is held in several permanent collections, including Emory University, The Bainbridge Museum of Art, Zayed University in Dubai, UAE, the Arab American National Museum, and the University of Iowa’s Special Collections Library.

• Artist Website:

Sakura Sakura: Images of the 442

• Dates: January 27 – February 22, 2023

The Southeast Art Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition highlighting two bodies of work from Portland photographer, this February on the first floor of the Student Commons (SCOM) building. This first year of programming at the Southeast Art Gallery which seeks to center the students and the community in placemaking, history, and connection is paramount. The location of the Southeast С��è��ý campus, on the land, once farmed by Japanese American farmers who cultivated the blossoming fruit trees (some like the pear and cherry trees near our present-day learning garden) brought to mind Motoya’s work looking to the cherry blossoms and their brief and glorious bloom along the Tom McCall waterfront on the edge of the Willamette River.

Motoya Nakamura has been associated with С��è��ý since as early as 2009, as part of the Faculty Internship Program Cohort and as a Photography instructor later in the Photography program at Sylvania and Newberg campuses. He holds a master’s degree in Fine Arts and Contemporary Art Practice from Portland State University and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is an award-winning photographer, including the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, and has been exhibited at the Portland Art Museum, and the to name a few.

Motoya Nakamura in his own words…

“Much of my work could be characterized as being a blend of art photography and photojournalism. Having been a professional photojournalist for more than 17 years, I have used photography not only to think critically about the world around me but also to give voice to people who otherwise wouldn’t have one. I have used art photography as a way to explore my internal landscape, the place where my soul resides. Much of my personal work has been autobiographical in nature.

As a resident of the United States and an immigrant from Japan, I have lived half my life in each country. My identity has changed as I have assimilated to the new culture. With my exposure to the world, both as an artist and a photojournalist, my assimilation has accelerated. I often feel as though I am a foreigner in this new land while simultaneously feeling like a stranger in the old. I constantly grapple with the notion of belonging, identity, and diaspora.”

Additional programming

A conversation with the artist: Thursday, February 12, 2023, 11am-2pm

Southeast Art Gallery, third floor, Student Commons Building, С��è��ý Southeast Campus, SE 82nd Ave, Portland Oregon

This is an in-person and a recorded remote event. You can drop in – in person or register for the Zoom meeting and attend remotely. Registration for the recorded Zoom session is through .

In this informal artist discussion with students, Motoya would like to discuss approaches to personal memoir, documentary styles, and how to use one’s creative process to investigate and explore one’s own feelings of loss, belonging, family, and at times, being pulled in multiple directions throughout life. Bring your questions and your notebooks and be ready to relax and chat or just listen and consider. All are welcome, entire classes are welcome to attend! This event will be open to the public and will be recorded for classes / broadcast on Zoom – folks wishing to participate remotely can do so over Zoom.

Closing reception: Wednesday, February 22, 2023, 6-8pm

Southeast Art Gallery, first floor of the Student Commons Building, С��è��ý Southeast Campus, SE 82nd Ave, Portland Oregon

Please register here for Community-Based Learning credit if you’d like to volunteer.

Open to all – students, faculty, staff, neighbors and families welcome.

We welcome you to come and celebrate the works of Motoya Nakamura as we close the exhibitions. The images of the 442nd will be moving to its new and permanent home at the. It was such an honor to display and share Motoya’s work this past month.

Sakura Sakura

More information and resources:

Images of the 442nd Nisei Japanese American WWII Veterans and Their Continuing Legacy

“This project began as a way to honor local WWII veterans who belonged to the U.S. Army 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The 442nd RCT, a segregated unit open to Nisei Japanese Americans from both Hawaii and the mainland, was formed in Camp Shelby, Mississippi, in 1943. During the war, these soldiers fought on the front lines against Nazi forces and liberated Jewish prisoners in Holocaust concentration camps. They did this away from their homes and livelihoods, while their families were confined to internment camps back in the United States. While war hysteria fueled racial discrimination against Japanese Americans, these Nisei soldiers fought hard for their country in order to prove their patriotism. The 442nd became the most decorated unit in the U.S. military history for its size and length of service.” – Motoya Nakamura

More information and resources:

Photo credit by Lee Holoubek

Photography Abroad in Prague

Dates: November 14, 2022 – January 20, 2023

Digital photography and photographic portfolio students from this summer’s study abroad program traveled to the city of Prague, in the Czech Republic, and have selected images to exhibit as part of this exhibition. Portfolio students will be sharing their personal artist portfolios as part of our programming.

Winners announced!

Join us in congratulating the following students for their outstanding entries in the Study Abroad Photography Contest! In the category of “Embracing New Cultures” Lee Holoubek from our Czech Republic program with Ivory Bradshaw from the Costa Rica program as Runner Up. In the category of “Self Discovery” Patricia Bill from the Australia Program was the winner and Pascua Pezani as well as Deborah Lev from the Costa Rica and Czech programs respectively were runners up for this category.

Please come to the event on January 20th to see their work and get to know a little more about their study abroad experiences.

Study abroad photography contest exhibition

December 9 – January 20, 2023

Students from every Summer 2022 Program have submitted their photographs from their travels in Costa Rica, Australia, Prague, and more! This juried group of images was selected by the Education Abroad Advisory Council in November. Two finalists and two runners-up in the categories of Embracing New Cultures and Self Discovery will have their works displayed in the Southeast Gallery.

Additional programming

Closing reception and story-telling event

 January 20th, 2023, 1-3pm

and choose to share your story by filling out this

Join us for a story-telling event with students and lead faculty from the summer’s programs in 2022 and join in as we celebrate the transformative power of experiential learning, art, and community. Students and faculty are invited to tell their stories by submitting video or audio entries along with images or by sharing in person.

Print sale and study abroad foundation scholarship fundraiser

January 20, 2023, 1-3pm

The Education Abroad office has its own С��è��ý Foundation Scholarship for students applying for С��è��ý faculty-led programs and some students have selected to donate a portion of their sales towards this fund to support financial resources for the next wave of students who wish to study abroad.

Midori Hirose: Furin “Wind Bell” Project

Honoring community and history through collaboration

Connections within community spaces, moments, and forms involve many different cultures. In these experiences, imagining new relations with each other and themselves resonates with Midori’s art practice.

The launch of this series of community-based activities invites the С��è��ý community as well as the neighbors in the surrounding area of SE 82nd and Division streets to participate in ceramic bell-making. This first workshop, and each additional event afterward, centers on the history of southeast Portland’s Japanese-American Farming community and the natural habitat.

The November 17th launch begins at the Southeast Art Gallery on the С��è��ý Southeast Campus, where Japanese American farmers were once active in the early 1900’s During WWII, families were sent to internment camps, and many did not return. A few of the orchard trees that were planted are still fruiting to this day.

The ceramic bell-making workshop invites the public to make their own interpretations of furin, Japanese “wind bells,” with the goal of building community connections and engaging in discussions about the past, present, and future of the Southeast Portland area.

Additional programming

• Furin Assembly Workshop – Thursday, March 2, 2023
  • 11am-2pm at the Southeast Art Gallery, in the Student Commons Building
  • С��è��ý Southeast Campus,
• Symposium and reception
  • May 5, 2023, 11am-4pm
  • Community Hall Annex, С��è��ý Southeast Campus

About the artist

Midori is a second-generation Japanese American born in Hood River, Oregon. Her parents established their roots in the Pacific Northwest when they immigrated in the late 1960s to work in the orchards and farms along the Columbia River Gorge.

Midori’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, and Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (now called Oregon Contemporary) for the Portland Biennial. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Lumber Room in Portland, OR; East/West Project, Berlin, Germany; Newberg Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland; and Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden.