Introducing the Jade-Midway Placemaking Projects

Photo: Audience at Place/Displace: A Jade-Midway Reading, held on June 25, 2015.

This summer and into the fall, the Jade District and Division Midway Alliance are launching the culmination of six months of planning seven different artistic projects generated through the Jade-Midway Placemaking Projects. The Jade-Midway Placemaking Projects are community engagement projects with the purpose of cultivating community building and consciousness raising of the residents that make up the Jade and Midway Districts. Projects are designed to create opportunities where community members and artists can work with local organizations to develop a series of temporary performances, exhibitions, and installations, focusing on placemaking, social justice, economic development and community collaboration in order to challenge displacement and gentrification in the rapidly changing neighborhood. The Jade District (82nd and Division) and Midway (122nd and Division) are two of Portland’s Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative Districts that focus on a community driven approach to economic development. This strip of SE Division (East of 82nd Ave) and SE Powell (west of 82nd Ave) will be a major leg of the planned Powell Division High Capacity Transit Project that will connect Gresham with Portland. The projects are aimed to raise awareness of the issues that directly impact the communities that live and work in the neighborhoods, with the mission of ensuring that communities can remain in the neighborhood and have access to resources that promotes a life where they are able to thrive.

Save the dates for each event happening this summer and fall! All events are free.

For any questions regarding these events, please contact Community Engagement Manager Luann Algoso at luann@apano.org or Lori Boisen at divisionmidwayalliance@gmail.com.

Faces and Places, open house reception
Date: Saturday, June 6th, 4:00 - 7:00pm
Location: Jade/APANO Multicultural Space (JAMS)

Under the direction of photography instructor Rachel Siegel and writing instructor Paul Montone, students enrolled in Portland Community College’s Southeast Campus’ Art 140 Intro to Digital Photography and Writing 121 courses created a book that showcases student-taken portraits and student written biographical entries based upon important, influential, or significant women community members within the Jade-Midway District. Students, through their process of community engagement and art making, will have an opportunity to celebrate people who are vital and important in the area, but who might otherwise go unrecognized.

‘Tell it Slant’ and APANO Arts & Media Collective Live Reading Event
Date: Thursday, June 25th, 7:00 - 9:30pm
Location: Jade/APANO Multicultural Space (JAMS)

Christina Conant and Danielle Frandina of the "Tell It Slant" monthly reading series for emerging writers of all genres, along with the newly formed APANO Arts & Media Collective, will be hosting a live reading event for emerging writers within the Jade-Midway District local community. 4-6 readers will share stories around the theme of place, gentrification, and dual identity.

Danielle Ross & Rosana Ybarra – Peoples Treasury
Danielle Ross, movement artist and Rosana Ybarra, activist and visual artist are combining forces to create a series of free creative workshops and an installation and exhibition of community culture and history entitled "The Peoples Treasury." The installation will be comprised of old photographs, written documents, artwork created by Jade-Midway residents, maps, memorabilia and other related ephemera. The Peoples Treasury is intended to act as a communal living history of the area, like a shared scrapbook that will shift through time.

To lead up to their exhibit, Danielle and Rosana will be hosting two workshops in August to engage with community members around their needs and to lift up their stories.

• Event: Mapping Home
  Date: Sunday, August 2nd
  Location: Jade/APANO Multicultural Space (JAMS)
  Cost: Free; RSVP here
  A free and fun art workshop based on exploring diverse visions of home and community. Open to anyone living or working in the Jade and Midway districts, this workshop will include a series of easy drawing, painting and word based exercises followed by a group story sharing session. No art skills are necessary to participate, only your own unique perspective!
• Event: Social Media Workshop for small business owners
  Date: Monday, August 10th
  Location: Jade/APANO Multicultural Space (JAMS)
  Cost: Free; RSVP here
  A free crash course on making the internet work for you! Learn the basic do’s and dont’s of marketing on various websites, creating a successful social media campaign, and turning strangers into clients and customers. This workshop is aimed to support locally owned businesses, as well as artisans and entrepreneurs of all types to thrive in the Jade and Midway districts. Any experience level welcome. Snacks and refreshments provided.

Pamela Chipman – One Voice Many Languages

Video will be shown at the following events:

• Date: Saturday, August 15th, during the Jade International Night Market
  Location: Jade/APANO Multicultural Space (JAMS)
• Date: Sunday, September 20th, during the Midway Festival of Nations
  Location: Midway District, 122nd and SE Division St.

Pamela Chipman will create a video utilizing twenty or more of the different languages spoken with-in the Jade/Midway communities. Twenty different voices relaying the same message: “One Voice, Many Languages, A Proud Community." There are over thirty languages from Russia, Asia, Africa, South America, and across Europe represented in the homes of the Jade/Midway districts of Portland. The video greeting will have representatives from those languages welcoming folks to the district in their native tongue. This looping welcoming message will projected at neighborhood festivals and events to create a bond, a unity of voices, and an everlasting video of hope

Patricia Vasquez – Dichos Populares

• Date: Saturday, August 22nd, during the Jade International Night Market
  Location: Jade/APANO Multicultural Space (JAMS)
• Date: Sunday, September 20th, during the Midway Festival of Nations
  Location: Midway District, 122nd and SE Division St.

(More dates to be announced)

Patricia Vasquez will work with local students and community members to create a series of silk screened posters that explore the nuances of language in translation. Dichos populares is a Spanish term that describes a phrase that captures popular wisdom. Sayings is the closest English translation to it. The project will gather phrases in the languages spoken in the Jade and Midway districts that have a unique meaning in that language or capture the popular wisdom of the language’s culture. Text based posters will be created for each of the collected phrases, in the original language as well as the translation into English. Posters will be distributed among students, participants to the workshops and placed at businesses, and other high visibility places..



Projects with event dates to be announced soon

Alain Bally – Casa de las Abejas - House of Bees
Alain Baily will build a unique Bee Hotel for the Harrison Park Community Garden. Prior to permanent installation, Casa de las Abejas will be used as traveling exhibit representing the Harrison Park Community Garden and the Jade District at community resource events. The Bee Hotel will support a robust and fruitful garden by ensuring that the vegetables and fruits have pollinators they needs to yield a bountiful harvest. Secondly it will provide a locus for the larger conversation about the health of our environment. Finally, Pollinators as metaphor is a great way to frame the conversations that the community activists in the Jade District engage in every day.

SandySampson & Jason Zimmerman: Mixing Together
Sandy Sampson and Jason Zimmerman are producing a short series of documentary films on the international cuisine found in the Midway District. Each episode will follow a family or individual of the neighborhood through the planning, shopping, preparation, and, finally, the enjoyment of a meal. The project will foster new connections between neighbors and serve as an invitation to the larger Portland community as well by highlighting and promoting the dense variety of foods, businesses and cultures the Midway neighborhood has to offer.