Learn more about our city’s monuments through a three-part podcast series on the past, present, and future of Portland’s monuments and public art.
The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or removed following demonstrations in Portland in 2020-2021. Portland Monuments Project aims to foster public dialogue to reimagine and transform the purpose of monuments and memorials in Portland.
Literary Arts is involved in this project because storytelling is at the heart of our mission, and monuments tell a story about who we were, who we are, what we value, and who we aspire to be. They tell stories about different communities and the stories they tell are dynamic, since our community is changing, time is passing, and the context for these fixed objects and changes around them.
Portland Monuments Project: Past
In this episode we’ll talk to the staff at the City’s Office of Arts and Culture who are leading this initiative, hear from experts, from historians, from passersby, and from other stakeholders who are questioning our past practices, and hope create change in how we, as a community, choose our monuments – who gets to decide which ones are put up and where they go.
Portland Monuments Project: Present
In this episode, we’re tracing the path of a monument that went from a guerrilla artwork to a museum piece and will soon be a monument again. Join us as we travel from the top of Mount Tabor to the mouth of the Columbia River to learn more about this particular monument and its subject – York the Explorer – from art curators, historians, and some nice people enjoying an afternoon in the park.
Portland Monuments Project: Future
In this episode, we’ll think about the monuments we need. We’ll hear from Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor, whose voice you might recognize as the other co-host of this show. We have a conversation with Portland writers Mitchell S. Jackson and Renée Watson about who they think should be honored with a monument in Portland. And we’ll hear from the people of Portland about the monuments they want to see and the stories they want to be told about this city, where we’ve been, and where it’s going.
