October 2021 Cultural Work Roundup

/// September 2021 ///

Here’s your monthly dose of BIPOC makers, radical thinkers, and resources featuring recommendations by Cultural Work Coordinator, Roshani Thakore and Communications Coordinator, Lani Felicitas. If you would like to include an item to a future Cultural Work Roundup, email Roshani at roshani@apano.org by the 20th of that month.

WATCH

• Notations – Over the course of Notations, Oregon Symphony’s latest digital series, you will experience the deep connection between musical expression and culture through the lens of five local musicians of color whose stories are poignantly shaped by music. The cultural landscape of America is rich and complex, and through these featured artists, Notations will examine how personal histories inspire creative work. Recommended by Communications Coordinator, Lani Felicitas.
• A Power to Rely On – The Center For Cultural Power’s second Climate Woke video - A Power to Rely On - follows host Layel Camargo on a trip to Arizona to meet with Indigenous women leaders and break down the benefits of solar power in tribal communities, the growing need to divest from fossil fuels, and ways that we can learn from the wisdom and climate leadership of Native women.
• Architect Rodney Leon on Black Public Art – Architect Rodney Leon presented a talk on February 18, 2020 at the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) as part of UC Berkeley's 400 Years of Resistance to Slavery and Injustice initiative. The presentation focused on Leon's work acknowledging the tragedy of the trans Atlantic slave trade and the critical presence of Africans in early New York City.

PRACTICE

• Monthly Keaton Otis Vigil – Keaton's father Fred Bryant started the monthly vigil on the 12 of the month after his son's murder on the spot where Keaton's life was taken. Fred Bryant passed away October 29, 2013. His family and community have committed to continuing the vigils every month on the 12th, until justice is achieved for Keaton, for Fred, for our whole community. Vigil is online on September 12th. If you would like log-in information, please message this page or Justice For Keaton Otis here on Facebook
• East Portland Arts & Literary Festival 2021: Presenting QUEERPALF – As we enter into another fall with COVID-19, EPALF — this year, aka QUEERPALF — is focusing on reconnection. Hosted online on a series of Fridays, the festival includes writing workshops, storytelling sessions, an online marketplace, and a lunchtime art series to provide an array of opportunities to share our hearts and minds with each other, all led by APANO’s Arts & Media Project’s (AMP) Queer and Trans Asian and Pacific Islander subcommittee. During this time together, we hope to shape a collective narrative for our community through a QTBIPOC lens. Four Fridays: October 22 and 29, November 5 and 12. Free and online. For more information and the festival line up click here.
• Constructing Civic Dialogues- Trainings for Portlanders by Vo – Constructing Civic Dialogues provides no-cost training on communication and conflict resolution to the public. Each of the participating community organizations and businesses that provide these trainings offers their own unique curriculum. October 22, 25, and 29. More information on Vo’s trainings can be found here.
• Indigenous Peoples’ Day Celebration – Join the NAYA community for an Indigenous People’s Day Celebration! There will be opening and closing drumming, as well as a reclaiming identity training by Shilo George, the Owner & Principal at Łush Kumtux Tumtum Consulting. More information for this online celebration here.
• Let ‘im Move You: Intervention – Part of the duo’s decade-long collaborative research into J-Sette performance, Intervention activates historically and/or predominantly Black neighborhoods, as it uses rhythm and precision as vehicles into subversion and satisfaction. On sidewalks and in alleyways, jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham draw on J-Sette’s call-and-response structure to reveal the powerfully singular expression that can emerge within this highly regimented dance. J-Sette originated among drill teams and majorette lines of historically Black southern universities and continues to grab the attention of half-time stadium crowds—while having a parallel life, and alternate political meanings, in the Southern "Black gay club scene." Performance routes are announced only hours before their intervention, freeing the performers to agitate the boundaries of propriety and belonging, and confront the historic imaginations and limitations of these spaces. A part of PICA’s TBA Festival. Friday, October 1 and Saturday, October 2 at 6 pm. Pay What You Can Passes at https://www.pica.org/tickets/tba21

LISTEN

• Artist Christine Wong Yap on her Places of Belonging Project – In this episode of Who Belongs? host Sara Grossman interviews Christine Wong Yap about her "Places of Belonging" project.
• How ICE uses tech to target immigrants – In this episode of Who Belongs? we hear from Jacinta González, an organizer with Mijente, a non-profit which leads campaigns to educate and organize around issues concerning immigration, detentions and deportations. Jacinta explains how ICE and other law enforcement agencies are using surveillance technologies to target immigrant communities and other communities of color, and gives us her take on what the new administration in Washington must do about it. This interview was conducted by Emnet Almedom, a policy analyst here at OBI.

READ

• Pasifika Power – Check out some incredible Pacific Islander artists all over the country that have been creating culture and building power for their communities all over.
• The U.S. Owes a Debt to Haiti and to Haitian Migrants – Gerald Lenoir from the Othering & Belonging Institute writes a piece on the historical relationship between the U.S. and Haiti and how, “Haiti deserves its freedom from US interference in its economic and political life. And Haitian migrants deserve due process and humanitarian relief.”
• Education Amplifier Manifesto – Education Amplifier provides free artwork, lesson plans and teaching tools that help facilitate non-partisan conversations around social justice in K-12 classrooms. Produced with pioneers in the nonprofit space, our 15-piece content library focuses on amazing young leaders who, like your students, used the power of their imagination to make change happen in their communities around gun violence prevention, climate justice, immigration rights, LGBT justice, disability justice, and anti-racism – just to name a few! We even have a ‘masterclass’ lesson teaching your students how to make their very own movement art, which we produced with the J. Paul Getty Museum. Read their manifesto and check out their lesson plans!

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LOCAL OPPORTUNITIES

• APANO is hiring! – APANO is currently looking for a Communications Manager, an Environmental Justice Manager, and more! For a complete listing go to https://apano.org/join-us/jobs-at-apano/

This programming message brought to you by APANO Communities United Fund, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.