For ten years Vanport Mosaic has inspired memory activism for Portland’s history.  Starting as a one-time memorial festival of the Vanport Flood, which on Memorial Day 1948 wiped out a town of 18,000, about a third of them African American, in what is now a stretch of north Portland near the Columbia River, the organization grew to a year-round presentation that has included outdoor walking experiences, arts exhibits, theater productions, concerts,  panels, videos and oral histories.

This multidisciplinary arts organization’s biggest offerings are now a two-week festival: This year’s theme is “A Decade of Memory Activism.” The festival begins Friday, May 16, and continues through June 1 at Alberta Hall and other locations in Portland such as CoHo Theatre, as well as historic sites such as the Portland Expo Center.

Laura Lo Forti and Damaris Webb have run the Vanport Mosaic Festival as co-directors for ten years, which in itself is an admirable achievement built on trust, hard work and mutual friendship, each respecting the other’s desire for art, activism and community engagement.

Dmae Lo Roberts talked with the co-directors to hear about the organization they built. They also give us an overview of festival. This includes a walking tour with former Black Panther Kent Ford, a bus tour to call attention to the history of racial discrimination in Portland housing, Damaris Webb’s new devised theater piece Precipice from Third Rail Rep, and We Are Still Here, Chisao Hata’s collaboration with composer Kenji Bunch that commemorates the World War II Incarceration of Japanese Americans and the impact of that legacy.

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In this podcast we’ll hear:

How Vanport Mosaic is weathering the current freezing of national grants …

Sponsor

Laura Lo Forti: “We are heart-broken witnessing what’s happening to so many of our partners and friends. We have a a national archives federal grant that was frozen ,and wouldn’t be surprised if it vanishes. That’s for a huge project and these are all reimbursable grants that we front (costs) and we hope to see it.”

The festival’s humble beginning …

Damaris Webb: “It was just supposed to be one festival to kind of, you know, amplify all these efforts that had been being offered in the community and … then, show you know, and … honoring of those who had lived there with a private reunion dinner.”

About how Webb traveled almost all Oregon counties for Precipice …

Damaris Webb: “I knew that as a Black person or a mixed race family, we stayed on I-5. And even then, there are only particular places that we’re going to stop for gas or eat or hang out at. And so the idea that I could go into these other places and see the land or maybe even find home there, just at tears, right? And I mean, I was like, this is, could I do that? So I figured if I made a project, I could go do that. And so Precipice has been the last project couple years of going out to places like the Painted Hills or, or other parts of Oregon.”

About Chisao Hata’s collaboration on June 1 with Kenji Bunch and Resonance Ensemble at the Portland Assembly Center…

Laura Lo Forti: “We’ll have this immersive site-specific performance in the very place where nearly 4,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated (during World War II). And there will be music, there will be movement, there will be poems, and there will be memories.”

Sponsor

Precipice

• Conceived & performed by Damaris Webb
• Written by Chris Gonzalez
• Presented by Third Rail Repertory Theatre
• May 16–June 1
• Thursdays–Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. | Sundays at 2 p.m.
• Location: CoHo Theatre
• 2257 NW Raleigh St, Portland, OR 97210
• More info: https://thirdrailrep.org/

We Are Still Here

• Location: Portland Expo Center / Assembly Center, 2060 N. Marine Drive, Portland
• When: June 1

Resonance Ensemble and Vanport Mosaic present an immersive site-specific performance of music, theater, and movement, featuring the award-winning voices of Resonance Ensemble, choral music curated and conducted by Shohei Kobayashi, the world premiere of a new work by acclaimed composer Kenji Bunch, and the Portland Assembly Project by Chisao Hata, co-directed by Heath Hyun Houghton. More info: https://www.vanportmosaic.org/