Vanport Mosaic

The 9th vanport mosaic festival: the 9th annual vanport mosaic festival gathered community members, artists, and historians for two weeks of performances, exhibits, oral history screenings, and walking tours honoring vanport's legacy of resilience. Highlights included the annual reunion for vanport residents and flood survivors, the malcolm x day: black panther party legacy tour, and the city of portland's vanport day of remembrance proclamation. The festival also featured the portland assembly project, an original performance by chisao hata, and the premiere of precipice: re-membering, forgetting, and claiming home, a solo play by damaris webb. Events like lost city, living memories oral history screening and an afternoon for rooting and re-storying at delta park created space for reflection on displacement and memory activism.

All power to the people program: we hosted four sold-out public black panther party legacy walking tours and two private tours, engaging nearly 450 participants. Our black history month programming included performances, panels, a community solidarity dinner and exhibits, drawing over 300 attendees. In partnership with oregon historical society, we premiered walking through portland with a panther: the life of mr. Kent ford, all power!, a filmed performance written by don wilson glenn, directed by damaris webb, and featuring la'tevin alexander, filmed under the direction of nora collie.

Oral history: we expanded our oral history archive, adding 15 new interviews to our collection of over 100 firsthand accounts of vanport and albina. This was made possible by our newly hired full-time program manager and historian, greta smith, increasing our capacity to document and preserve community stories. To activate this living archive, we developed placing memories, a new initiative using immersive storytelling to connect communities with silenced histories. Launching in 2025, the first phase will feature self-guided audio walks in albina and vanport, combining oral histories, archival materials, and site-specific narratives to bring these historic neighborhoods to life.exhibits: our traveling exhibits were displayed at osu, uo, old town, the expo center, and alberta house. We also developed the journey of jackie winters: from vanport to the capitol, a traveling exhibit that will launch virtually in spring 2025 and be displayed at the oregon capitol in 2026.youth program: the youth archivist program at jefferson high school engaged students in 3d scanning, digital modeling, tile-making, and bronze casting to document and preserve the school's cultural legacy. Students led archival activities at the jefferson celebration, guiding elders and alumni through scanning yearbooks and creating ceramic tiles for the living archive. Their work was also featured in the policing justice exhibition at the portland institute for contemporary art. A shift to a stipend-based model improved retention, fostering commitment and skill development. The program continues to connect students with their history while building a lasting community archive.