Upcoming – Art Galleries

Thanatopsis: A Meditation on Grief, Death, and Transition

zeinab.saab — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 23:24:56 +0000

Promotional image (with description) above:��

Top left: ‘Grief Body 2’, 2024, Shelley Chamberlin, India Ink on paper, 24 x 18 inches.

Top right: ‘Marrow Noir’, 2025, Dardinelle Troen, archival digital photo on walnut, biochar, deer vertebrae, 7 x 14 x 2.5 inches.��

At bottom: ‘Primordialscapes’ (detail) 2025, Marne Lucas, infrared thermal video still, archival pigment print on Royal silk chiffon, acrylic rod, 40 x 60 inches.

EVENTS:

Opening Reception- Thursday, December 4th, 2025 from 5-8p

January 2026 Workshops:��

Saturday, January 17th, 1p –Ancestors in Training- A meditation on end-of-life and what comes next… by Dardinelle Troen/Vie Mort Doula. 45 Minutes
Saturday, January 17th, 2:30 Yoga for Grief Relief facilitated by Rebecca Méndez. 60 Minutes
Saturday, January 24th, 1p –Write Your Own Obituary by Katherine Annala. A one hour workshop on writing one’s obituary is an illuminating exercise to learn about our own life and legacy.
Saturday, January 31st, 1-4pm- What is Your Legacy? Collage Workshop by Marne Lucas/Bardo Project.

Closing Reception- Saturday, February 14th, 2026 ��5 – 8 pm.

**All events are free and open to the public**

Artist Talk and closing reception with Marne Lucas, Shelley Chamberlin, and Dardinelle Troen. The artists will discuss their work, their relationship to each other as artists, and grief, loss, death. Q & A to follow

*Gallery will be closed December 16th, 2025 through January 6th, 2026*

Paragon Arts Gallery at PCC Cascade presents Thanatopsis: A Meditation on Grief, Death, and Transition. The exhibition opens Thursday, December 4th, 2025, and runs through Saturday, February 15th, 2026.��

Please join us for the opening event on Thursday, December 4th, 2025 from 5-8p. The gallery will open at 12pm and close at 8pm.

All events are free and open to the public.

Thanatopsis is a premiere three-person art exhibition that explores the end of life, the grief that accompanies death, and conceptually addresses impermanence and transformation beyond the physical form. Death is a taboo subject, yet we all eventually arrive there. The aim is to allow for the tangible feelings, the vastness of empty space, the sparse moments of sublime beauty in these difficult places, and honor the memory of those who have died. Death is a natural part of the cycle of life, and each individual’s work places aesthetic, emotional, and philosophical value on this inevitable transition. These three artists have found community in each other through their lived experiences with grief, loss, and transformation. They share the desire to illuminate and connect through their creativity, and find new direction in unexpected transformational paths. The audience can share their own experiences and stories in community, where together we heal.

WORKSHOPS

Saturdays as listed. Free and open to the public.

*Documentation photographs will be taken during workshops for the facilitators and artists’ websites.

Saturday, January 17, 2026 @ 1pm: Ancestors in Training- A meditation on end-of-life and what comes next… by Dardinelle Troen/Vie Mort Doula. Seated meditation, 45 minutes.

Join us for an afternoon of guided meditation focused on cultivating mindfulness and awareness of our mortality. We will draw inspiration from Maranasati, or The Nine Contemplations of Death, a Buddhist meditation practice designed to help us confront and overcome our resistance to death and dying. The primary purpose of these practices is to face our own mortality, similar to traditional meditation, intended to enhance our appreciation for the richness of everyday life. Dardinelle Troen will guide participants through a meditation that explores the nine contemplations, incorporating visualizations that reflect on our role as future ancestors.
Dardinelle Troen is a creative artist, designer, end-of-life doula, and entheogen facilitator based in Portland, Oregon. Her creative work involves exploring human stories and their impact on the spaces they occupy. This has led Dardi to a personal journey to embrace the full spectrum of human experiences, from love to grief, and from life to death. These stories carry an important legacy of the human condition. They are often overlooked or disregarded due to cultural aversion to death and our obsession with life and vitality. In concealing our vulnerability and fragility, we miss the opportunity to fully embrace the lessons that come with holding space for death, the dying, and our own experiences of grief. Troen’s goal is to create and nurture spaces for these stories to unfold and to support the incredible individuals who embody them. Then, if and where possible, bring them to light as a healing for all who encounter them.

Saturday, January 17, 2026. 2:30pm.�� 60 minutes: Yoga for Grief Relief facilitated by Rebecca Méndez.��
The Yoga session is suitable for all levels and is done seated on a chair and/or standing. Accessible options offered. Grief touches all of us. Sometimes in life-altering ways, other times in subtle and surprising moments of change and transition. Whether you’ve lost a loved one, experienced a major life event, or are simply navigating the everyday rhythms of letting go/holding on, grief is ever present. And just as love does, grief transforms us. Yoga for Grief Relief class offers a safe, compassionate space to be with your grief. Through gentle yoga movements, visualizations and breath awareness practices you can calm your nervous system, ease tension, and have intentional time for reflection, release, and healing. Rebecca will read some poems as an offering for tender hearts. With these yoga tools and mindful practices Yoga for Grief Relief offers ways to meet yourself where you are, soothe and soften the edges of loss—so you can find more compassion, presence, and understanding, not just during class but also to be called upon as needed.

Rebecca Méndez is a 500+ hour certified yoga teacher with specialized training in Chair Yoga, Accessible Yoga and Yoga for Healthy Aging. She took her first yoga class around age 10 but didn’t come back to the practice of yoga until much later in life. After attending many classes and workshops she realized the importance of yoga (and her yoga teachers) to her life and overall well-being and took the big leap in 2019 into her first training. Graduating just before the pandemic in 2020 she pivoted from her project management career and now has a regular teaching schedule, hosting her own zoom classes as well as leading weekly classes and workshops at . Yoga for Healthy Aging classes are accessible to anyone and everyone. In her Chair Yoga classes participants can experience the many benefits of yoga, with no mat or getting down on the floor required. After experiencing deep losses in 2021 Rebecca pivoted again and brought her focus to Yoga for Grief workshops to address the needs so many of us have to process grief in community and in connection with others. Mixing poetry with breathwork, movement and resting poses in workshops she brings compassion, presence, and understanding to deeply felt losses.

Saturday, January 24, 2026 @ 1pm: Write Your Own Obituary facilitated by Katherine Annala. 60 minutes. Materials: if preferred please bring a laptop (paper will be provided.)
Writing your own obituary can be a powerful exercise in exploring who you are and what you want the world to know about your life. In this class we will explore what your legacy is and how to put it into words. We will discuss the different types of obituaries, and you will learn the basics of obituary writing. Bring a journal for writing or a tablet or laptop.

Katherine Annala is a doctor of acupuncture in Portland Oregon. While her focus of study in the doctoral program was aging adults and women’s health, Katherine is also experienced in treating underserved populations challenged by substance use disorder and mental health concerns. She received a Coalition of Community Health Clinics “Community Health Superstar” award in 2019 for her work at the Outside In integrative medicine clinic. In addition to being a clinical supervisor at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM), she taught the case Management class and was the Associate Dean of Clinical Education at OCOM until its closure in August 2024. Dr. Annala studied art at PSU for her undergraduate degree and has a lifelong passion for fiber arts including costume creation and quilting.

Saturday, January 31st, 2026. 1-4pm: What is Your Legacy? facilitated by Marne Lucas/Bardo Project. Drop in, all ages.
A collage on paper workshop exploring one’s own or a loved one’s legacy, all materials are provided. Create a beautiful personal collage to explore your life’s path and honor your legacy. Participants may keep their creations.
Marne Lucas (she/her/they) is a multidisciplinary artist and death doula working at the intersection of art, science, and health, using conceptual overlaps: life’s energy, the body, and mortality, in social practice investigations. Lucas’ long-term projects are informed by the events and emotions of the community around her, and are inspired by the death doula and palliative care movements. An infrared thermal video pioneer, she uses heat-sensitive imaging technology to illuminate the magic and fragility of human life cycles. Founder of the ‘Bardo Project, Lucas explores creativity as a form of spiritual care in collaborations with terminally ill artists to establish their legacy. Lucas received training via INELDA as an End of Life Doula, a role that supports the dying and their families, and has been a practicing EOLD since 2016. Marne has collaborated with artists, choreographers, dancers, musicians, activist groups, sex workers, health care and LGBTQIA non-profits, and the public at large.

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Shelley Chamberlin – Grief Body

“When a loved one dies, you experience your life in just two days, today, when they are no longer here, and yesterday, the immense, vast yesterday, when they were here.” –Ocean Vuong��

Grief body is an ongoing series documenting the raw and unfiltered experiences of grief’s movement in and through the body, the ghost in the machine, the river through the canyon of the body. Impossible and inevitable. Figures overlap and layer, untethered by time, ghosts accrue.

Grief Body 2, Shelley Chamberlin, 2024, India Ink on Paper, 24″ x 18

Marne Lucas – Transmundane

Scientist Carl Sagan said, “…we are made of star stuff.”��

The Transmundane series is an ongoing lens-based art-veillance practice to conceptualize the awe inspiring, invisible, fragile energy of humanity using heat-sensitive infrared thermal (IRT) video. Exploring the body and the metaphysical to pose philosophical ideas on transformation, Lucas’ professional life as an end of life Doula (EOLD) provides insight. “Being at the veil” is to bear witness to physical, emotional, and spiritual transformations of life’s ebb and flow, into a new form of energy, Love. Thermography technology most associated with surveillance culture, allows the viewer to witness breathtaking invisible heat signatures (hot areas appear white, and cold or wet areas are black), and expresses ideas about our beginnings as being part of the universe, that we are beings of light. To witness our own energy is to accept the temporality of existence, and the magic of the transmundane- that which lies in the celestial and beyond.
The series of infrared video stills applied as decals to glazed vitreous porcelain tiles have imagery sourced from her IRT experimental short films. The glazed vitreous porcelain tiles were made at an Arts/Industry residency (Pottery Division) at the Kohler Co. factory in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.Celestial Navigator (Shroud),

Marne Lucas, 2025, Archival pigment print, Royal silk chiffon banner, plexiglass rod, 40 x 60 inches

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Dardinelle Troen – All forms dissolve. Only actions endure.��

Art serves as a memento, a reminder, and a talisman. This body of work is a personal meditation on my own impermanence on this planet and the brevity of our existence. What do we leave in our absence? What residual traces do we reverberate, and what gifts do we leave in our wake for a planet that has sustained us in every waking moment? Every living thing needs something to die in order to live. Death feeds life.

I became enamored with the ideas of impermanence and transformation and how my work, like life, might be intentionally impermanent—deliberately returning to the earth and transforming in the process. The alchemical nature of elements to transform. Death and decay become vital nutrients that sustain new life.

Biochar, also known as Terra Preta or “Dark Earth,” is a form of soil amendment that dates back to Amazonian tribes and, some say, Roman-era Britain. Unlike traditional charcoal, biochar facilitates the sequestration of carbon. The biochar is subsequently activated or charged with nutrients that are then released over time, while the porosity and surface area of the biochar improve soil structure and house beneficial microbes. I was inspired by the process, which, unlike traditional charcoal, left the original biomatter visually intact yet forever altered its composition while maintaining the original form.��

Each of the pieces in this body of work is meant to, in part or whole, dissolve, degrade, and eventually disappear back into the earth, leaving gifts and nutrients in their wake. They are intentionally impermanent with the desire that they, like our own bodies, will need to be released and returned to the earth.

Time is a game played beautifully by children. – Heraclitus, Dardinelle Troen, 2025
Archival digital photo on walnut, deer jawbone, zinc filigree
7 x 14 x 1.5” inches

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About the Artists

Shelley Chamberlin is an interdisciplinary artist who works in a variety of media from printmaking to film to performative installation,and most recently leaning heavily into intimate and delicate drawing in ink and charcoal. Chamberlin’s work explores relationality and the ways in which we build and contextualize meaning and has been shown locally and nationally. Their work has been included in a variety of film and print media, including NBC’s Grimm, The Grove Review, and Album Covers for The Speechwriters and Velvet Mishka. Her work is included in the collections of Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University, Southern Graphics Council International, and Regional Arts and Culture Council’s Visual Chronicle of Portland. Chamberlin has a BFA from Marylhurst University and an MFA from Goddard. She is Art Faculty at PCC. Chamberlin is a 2022 recipient of the Ford Family Foundation Oregon Artist Fellowship and artist in residence at MASS MoCA.

Marne Lucas is an interdisciplinary artist and end of life doula (EOLD) working at the intersection of art, science, and health, using conceptual overlaps: life’s energy, the body, and mortality, in social practice investigations. An infrared thermal video pioneer since 1995, Lucas uses heat-sensitive imaging technology to illuminate the fragility of human life cycles. Lucas’ long-term projects are informed by the community around her, and are inspired by the doula movements. The Bardo Project explores creativity as a form of spiritual care in collaborations with terminally ill artists nationwide to establish their legacy. Lucas received EOLD training at INELDA under Henry Fersko Weiss, a role that supports the dying and their families. Lucas has collaborated with artists, choreographers, dancers, musicians, activist groups, sex workers, health care and LGBTQIA non-profits, and the public at large. She exhibits worldwide including The Brand Library (L.A.), Fremantle Arts Centre (Perth, AU), Peltz Gallery (London UK), FEMeeting 2025 Windsor, CAD (2024), “Synthetic Becoming” Byrno, CR (2022), ‘Taboo-Transgression-Technology in Art & Science’ Vienna online (2020). Lucas participated in a 2025 PLAYASummerlake (OR) residency, and a 2016 Arts/Industry artist residency (Foundry, Pottery Divisions) at the Kohler Co. Her work is in collections of the Portland Art Museum, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, and the Visual Chronicle of Portland, RACC.

Dardinelle Troen is an artist, designer, and end-of-life doula. Her creative pursuits focus on crafting immersive environments and infusing physical spaces with meaningful stories. Much of her past work revolves around exploring human narratives and their lasting impact on the environments they inhabit. These stories—personal anecdotes, myths, folklore, or poetry—are essential to the human experience and a deeper understanding of our shared experiences. Participants can see their journeys, hopes, desires, and vulnerabilities reflected through this simple sharing of stories. Fostering an emotional connection and contributing to the profound legacy of the human condition.��

Over the past decade, Dardinelle’s exploration of visually translating a myriad of stories ignited a deeply personal quest to embrace and investigate a broader spectrum of human experience, from love to grief, and life to death. This journey ultimately inspired her to become an end-of-life doula and a guide for plant medicine. Dardinelle aims to create and nurture spaces where these stories can unfold, supporting the extraordinary individuals who embody them. Wherever possible, she seeks to illuminate these narratives in ways that can offer healing to all who encounter them.

Websites/Social Media:

Marne Lucas-

@marnelucas @aquietusendoflifedoula

Shelley Chamberlin:

@shelleychamberlinart

Dardinelle Troen:

@ditroen @viemortdoula

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Support for development of this exhibition was provided by The Ford Family Foundation, and by the Oregon Arts Commission.

About Paragon Arts Gallery:

Paragon Arts Gallery is an educational showcase committed to exhibiting work of high artistic quality. Our versatile gallery is located at , at PCC’s Cascade Campus. Mindful of our role as a member of the Humboldt community, we are especially committed to engaging community members in our space.��

About the PCC Art Galleries:

˿��Ƶ is home to four art galleries: the North View Gallery, the Paragon Arts Gallery, the Helzer Gallery and the Southeast Gallery, each located on one of our four comprehensive campuses in Portland, Oregon. The Art Galleries are dedicated to supporting education and community building through the arts.

Joni Smith: Markmaker

zeinab.saab — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 23:45:26 +0000

Promotional Image:

Large Multicolor, Joni Smith, Colored Pencil Paper, 2025.

EVENTS:

Thursday, October 2nd, 2025- 4-7p, Opening event w/ live performance from Portland Musician and Composer Kennedy Verrett of Mad Composer Lab

Paragon Arts Gallery at PCC Cascade presents Joni Smith: Markmaker. The exhibition opens Thursday, October 2nd, 2025, and runs through Saturday, November 15th, 2025.��

Please join us for the opening event on Thursday, October 2nd, 2025 from 4-7p. The gallery will open at 12pm and close at 7pm.

All events are free and open to the public.

Joni Smith (b. 1955) is a prolific, entirely self-taught Portland artist who has been drawing since childhood. She has an extraordinary creative practice, sometimes drawing for over eight hours each day, often regardless of place and circumstance. Art-making is inextricable from Joni’s life – she creates at a drafting table in her art studio, nestled in a recliner in her living room, and even from the bed of a hospital room. For Joni, art is a primary communication tool.

Over the course of her 60+ year art practice, she has filled hundreds of sketchbooks, frequently drawing on the front and back of each page. In 2021, Joni joined North Pole Studio where she began using an upright drafting table and tabletop easel, allowing her to access large-scale paper from her wheelchair and marking a significant phase-change in her creative practice. Using these tools, Joni continues to build an extensive collection of large-scale works, working across various sizes, paper textures and multiple mediums.��

Joni’s process is kinetic and expressive; she harnesses raw energy into mark-making that oscillates between sweeping, delicate linework to forceful, striking motions that can tear through the page. Seemingly guided by intuition, she draws in continuous, rhythmic movement while making instantaneous decisions about color as she adds layers to build each form. Joni’s process is episodic; themes in color and shape can be found throughout her work in sets or multiphase series. Joni’s most recent works showcase her exploration of an elegant arcing shape – variations of which take an almost shell or cloud-like form. In other works, undulating orbs are put in tension with one another, almost as if dualling, and in earlier works, Joni works across the perimeter of her page, giving the impression of a central magnetic force as each shape is drawn inward and towards one another.��

Joni’s creative practice and collection of work has only become known to the public within the last 5 years, and this is the first solo exhibition of her work.

This show was curated and produced by North Pole Studio, a Portland-based nonprofit Progressive Art Studio that provides accessible studio space and professional arts programming for artists with autism and intellectual/developmental disabilities.

North Pole Studio supports careers in the arts, and exists to increase opportunities for artists with autism and intellectual/developmental disabilities to thrive as active members of the arts community. We foster self-determination and facilitate meaningful connections through total engagement in the arts.

Instagram: @northpolepdx��

Website:�� www.northpolestudio.org

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About Paragon Arts Gallery:

About the PCC Art Galleries:

dream juice

zeinab.saab — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 21:12:39 +0000

EVENTS:

Friday, March 7th, 5-8pm -Exhibition opening event, with musical and dance performances by Half Shadow and Kye Grant, and Dorians (Dream Cookies) by Martha and Ním Daghlian
Thursday, March 13th, 5-7pm- Dream reading: read aloud group with Erika Callihan and tarot reading with Rose Lewis. Dream snacks and dream interpretation group with Josephine Lacosta
Friday�� 3/14�� 7-8pm The Comfort In by Sean Christensen: performance
Friday 3/21 6-8pm Listen In: Sound bath with Imaginal Cells (Erin Aquarian and Nathan Hil)l and ear seeds with licensed acupuncturist Judy Myong Acupuncture.
Thursday 3/28 7-8pm Twin peaks episode with live score by Swinging
Thursday, 4/3, 5-7 Found Fruits Dream Drawing Group with Erika Callihan
Friday 4/11- Closing Event with Salty Xi Jie Ng, time TBD

Paragon Arts Gallery at PCC Cascade presents DREAM JUICE. The exhibition opens Friday, March 7th, 2025, and runs through Saturday, April 12th, 2025.��

Please join us for the opening event on Friday, March 7th, 2025 from 5-8p. Gallery will open at 12pm and close at 8pm.

All events are free and open to the public.

dream juice ��is a multimedia group show curated by Erika Callihan, including work from twenty five artists exploring ideas which originated in dreams. In the same way that dreams reveal a seemingly limitless array of elements and themes, the scope of this surprising and playful exhibition includes: paintings, drawings, collages, performances, photos, prints, songs, zines, videos, lamps, pillows, cookies, cake, candy, snacks, and a semi-functional papier-mâché “dating app.”

Participating artists:�� Sophia Baraschia-Ehrlich, Laura Bartram, Erika Callihan, Jesse Carsten, Imaginal Cells: Erin Aquarian + Nathan Hill, Sean Christensen (Phull Collums), Rachel Corry, Lindsay Costello, sd, Martha + Ním Daghlian, Kristen Diederich, Indigo Free, Kye Grant, Rainen Knecht, Eva Knowles, Josephine Lacosta, Rose Lewis, Biz Miller, Judy Myong Acupuncture, Salty Xi Jie Ng, Gili Rappaport, Dawn Riddle, Half Shadow, Anke Schüttler, Swinging, Jasmine Wood

Curatorial Statement:

“There is something vital in the involuntary act of dreaming, and in the sometimes-involuntary and sometimes-practiced act of remembering dreams. In dreams: we process and project. We can use dreams as tools to understand ourselves, but might we also use them to connect with something beyond ourselves?

Maybe a dream is complete in and of itself. Perhaps it needs no tending. But what if a dream is a seed- the compact and minuscule potentiality of something much larger and more tangible?What if a dream begins when you wake up? When you make breakfast? When you place a pencil on a blank page? When you call your friend just to say hello? Yoko Ono says: “a dream you dream alone is a dream; a dream you dream together is a reality.”��

What might become possible if we prioritize the act of sharing our dreams, of co-creating new realities not only in our intimate relationships but in public? When everything with which we interact in our techno-centric media-saturated world has been dreamed and designed by someone, we must ask: who has the power to make their dreams real, and therefore: whose dream are we living in? Elon Musk says: “ I don’t seem to remember the good dreams… The ones I remember are the nightmares.”

How then might we reclaim our capacity to dream in defiance of the nightmarish current global moment? And what if dreaming is more than a mere capacity? What if dreaming is our ��ǲԲ��ٲ�?”

About the Artist/Curator:

Erika Callihan is a multimedia social practice artist and creative counselor living and working in Portland, Oregon. She completed her Associate of Science at ˿��Ƶ in 2014, followed by a Bachelor of Science in Art Practices at Portland State University in 2017. She completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training and the Peoples Yoga in 2018, and a two-year counseling training program at Mindful Experience Therapy Approaches in 2021. Her work and practices integrate all of these studies and more- combining art, ecology, movement, philosophy and counseling in service to exploring the new potentials and possibilities within this particular place in this peculiar time. Her work is grounded in daily writing, drawing, music making, meditative movement, and walks with her dog. She organizes and facilitates spaces for artists to be creative together, ranging from drawing workshops to support groups for smartphone users. Despite the diversity of methods and mediums, the objective of Erika’s work is always this: to develop curiosity and to magnify our innate compassion and intrinsic sense of connection within ourselves, and therefore: with each other. And: to enjoy it! :o)

About Paragon Arts Gallery:

About the PCC Art Galleries:

Sada [regroup] screening + artist talk

Christine Weber — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 22:28:29 +0000

From 2011-2015, Sada, an online and in person ad hoc art school, was set up in Baghdad to support artists working through the aftermath of US-led invasion and occupation. Nearly a decade later, former artists of Sada came together again, reflecting on their creative and disparate lives since that time. Artists Sajjad Abbas, Bassim Al Shaker, Ali Eyal, Sarah Munaf, and Rijin Sahakian each created video works, comprising one experimental, interconnected anthology film on individual and collective art practice in a protracted era of international warfare.

The North View Gallery, with support from the Regional Arts and Culture Council, will be hosting a screening of Sada [regroup] commissioned by documenta fifteen on Thursday, November 14 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m in the MAHB Auditorium in the Cascade campus. Sada artists Ali Eyal and Bassim Al Shaker will be in attendance and will speak about their work after the screening.

Sada [regroup]
Sajjad Abbas, Ali Eyal, Sarah Munaf, Rijin Sahakian, Bassim Al Shaker
2022, 54 minutes
In Arabic with English subtitles, and English with Arabic subtitles
Commissioned by documenta fifteen

Using street footage, narrative, and documentary, Sajjad Abbas’s��Water of Life��tracks its filmmakers’ urge to forge protest that is bigger than himself, following monumental artwork, migration, and the return to place and protest. In Ali Eyal’s��The Blue Ink Pocket, a mysterious letter from an artist is authored to communicate the futility of describing violence in full, its scattering of meaning, and the power it derives through its lesser understood perpetrators and permutations. In��Journey Inside a City, shot in Iraq, Turkey, and Ukraine, Sarah Munaf layers her experience as a sculptor and as part of a threatened community of artists and residents in Baghdad, and, later, as a refugee finding her way in coastal Turkey as her parents navigate life in Ukraine. In��Barbershop, stop-motion animation, cut out drawings, and first-person storytelling give shape to the artist Bassim Al Shaker’s memory of his own kidnapping and its impact on his personal and creative life in the years that followed. Taking moments from popular and political culture during the 1991 Iraq war and the second invasion of Iraq, Rijin Sahakian’s��Anthem��traces the use of multinational warfare in its varying methodologies— from technology to the arts—to extinguish life.

The Sada (regroup) screening is part of the Refractions screening series from the North View Gallery, made possible through a grant from the . Refractions features artists who use video, animation, and performance to refract or bend narrative directions by exposing the complicated realities of cultural myths, colonization, protracted international wars, migration, and the implications of past violence on potential futures.

About the Artists

Ali Eyal (b.1994) is an artist working with painting, drawing, and video to explore the relationships between personal history, transitory memories, politics, and identity. Eyal is currently featured in Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (2023). Eyal’s solo exhibitions include In the Head’s Sunrise, Brief Histories, New York (2023); In the Head’s Dusk, SAW Gallery, Ottawa (2023). Recent group exhibitions include, Is It Morning for You Yet?, the 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2023); Surviving the Long Wars: Reckon and Reimagine, Chicago Cultural Center (2023); Documenta 15, Kassel (2022); Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991-2011, MoMA PS1, New York (2020); How to Reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing, Beirut Art Center, Lebanon (2019). Eyal’s video work is included in the 22nd Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil: Memory is an Edition Station, São Paulo (forthcoming October 2023); Rencontres Internationales, Paris; VITRINE x Kino Screenings, London; Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation; and Cairo Video Festival, Medrar, Cairo. His works are in the collection of Kadist, Paris; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah. Eyal earned an undergraduate degree from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad (2015), he currently lives and works in Los Angeles.

Bassim Al Shaker (b. 1986 Baghdad, Iraq) is a Chicago-based artist and filmmaker. Al Shaker received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BFA from the University of Baghdad College of Fine Arts. Al Shaker has exhibited work in Documenta Fifteen (Kassel, Germany); The Venice Biennale for the Iraqi Pavilion; The Arizona State University Art Museum (Tempe, AZ); FLXST Contemporary (Chicago, IL); and MANA Contemporary (Chicago, IL), among other venues. His work has been written about in publications such as The New York Times, ArtNews, Artnet, e-flux, NewCity, WBEZ Chicago, and Phoenix New Times.

Graphic design by Matt Foster.

Connection | Isolation

kim.manchester — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 20:33:59 +0000

Friday | April 26th | 5-9PM

Doors & activities at 5PM, screening begins at 6PM with Q&A to follow

Location: CLIMB Center | 1626 SE Water Avenue, Portland, OR 97214

center map��|��map of accessible features

A New Documentary by G Chesler |

A work-in-progress screening with G. Chesler of their documentary. In this event, viewers will watch the film as a work in progress, and are invited to participate in discussion about building a documentary with and for trans and queer people. Viewers will be invited to reflect on their own pandemic experiences and consider community, health, and connection in this era.

Note: Masks will be required and provided for this event.

The Film

In an airborne pandemic when separation, isolation, and self-sufficiency became the punishing norm, many trans and genderqueer people face the COVID-19 era differently. G. Chesler’s new documentary feature presents eight portraits of trans, postgender, and genderqueer people who share their experiences of cultivating, sustaining, and joining communities in this pandemic. These trans community creators center experiences of Asian American people facing violent racism as the pandemic began in late 2019, Black Americans rising in opposition to white supremacist police-state violence in mid 2020, and the exclusion many people who are disabled feel from a society that—despite grave and massive loss—still refuses to habitually protect itself at large.

G. Chesler’s film highlights how COVID-19 and Long COVID have impacted trans people disproportionately. This is not a new story for a community that faces violent loss, less access to health care, criminalization, and whose freedoms are legislatively restricted by transphobes forcefully. But it is one that must be heard and understood. Trans and queer people have built a culture undergirded by mutual aid. This became a model for resilience and care in the pandemic for those who listened.

May this film be a conduit for that history.

May it also foster space and reflection by trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, and queer viewers of their own experiences in this time.

G. directs and produces this film as a transgender nonbinary disabled queer person, primarily for other queer and trans folx. They work with a crew of artists across the US who are all queer, genderqueer, nonbinary, and predominantly trans. Their approach echoes G.’s documentary feature “Period: The End of Menstruation,” which wove a similar portrait based tapestry. G.’s 20+ year career of filmmaking around themes of the body, gender, health, and racial justice informs their choices in making this documentary through a practice centering consent, sustainability, and health.

The Filmmaking Team

G Chesler Director/Producer

Director and Producer G.Chesler (they/them)��G is a white trans genderqueer disabled filmmaker, living in Portland, Oregon. They direct and produce documentary and narrative films addressing sexuality, the body, gender and racial justice. G. (aka Giovanna) is a 2023 PGA Create Fellow for their work Producing Intersex Justice��by Aubree Bernier-Clarke, a feature documentary on intersex activist Pidgeon Pagonis. G. also serves as Producer of Impact, Distribution, and Marketing for��Outliers and Outlaws by Director Courtney Hermann about the migration of hundreds of lesbians to Eugene Oregon from the 1960s-1980s.

G.’s previous film projects include Producing��Out in the Night��which premiered on PBS and LOGO networks simultaneously, and opened the United Nation’ Free+Equal Campaign combatting homophobia and transphobia worldwide. Out in the Night went on to win 15 awards internationally and is distributed by New Day Films. G.’s most recent fiction film is their short rom com��The Pick Up��about a sullen teen taking a wrong turn home from swim practice screened far and wide, that won Best Short Film at Cineffable Paris and image+nation Montreal, Best Screenplay (Jury Prize) at Big Muddy Film Festival, and streams online through distributor Gonella Productions.

This year G. served as an Advisor to filmmakers in the inaugural ITVS / NEH Humanities Fellowship in Documentary Development and are a recipient of a Regional Arts and Culture Council grant for Connection | Isolation. They teach documentary production, fiction screenwriting, and directing remotely at George Mason University.

Crew Bios

The Cinematography by credit is shared by many talented trans and queer image-makers across the US including (they/them) DP of Framing Agnes and director of Intersex Justice and , (he/they), Meagan Arnold (she/her), and (she/her).

Eli Haan – Editor (they/them) Eli works between music video, documentary, fiction and commercial projects, Their work as our Editor strengthens the emotional arcs and abstract expressions in each portrait. Eli’s work of note includes the co-directed and co-edited short documentary , that follows Mercy Shammah—founder of local nonprofit —on her journey to reimagine Oregon’s outdoor adventure community. This film centers Mercy’s experience as a queer African American woman who is challenging the stereotype of an outdoorist while living in one of the whitest cities in the USA. Her journey towards creating an inclusive outdoors is one of sacrifice that requires endurance as well as audacity. Luckily, Mercy is undeniably—and unyieldingly—driven to thrive.

Lazer Selvera Associate Producer

Lazer Selvera – Associate Producer + Researcher (he/she/they) is a Latine, transgender person living in Chicago. Lazer spent most of his life in northwest Arkansas, was born in Texas, and lived in various states across the Southern US. Lazer is a graduate of the Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies concentration in Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. Their research and focus centers on trans studies, Southern studies, and making academia accessible through the creative arts. Lazer’s recent short film, “Ones & Zeros” is a commentary on the gender limitations of video game character creation.

Dani Taylor Assoc Prod + Editing

Dani Taylor – Associate Producer, Researcher + Additional Editing (they/them) is a nonbinary Asian American filmmaker living in Hong Kong, who was born in China and studied filmmaking in Northern Virginia. They have drifted between various locations and cultures for their entire life. Because of Dani’s mixed cultural background, they are especially interested in the intersections between cultures and identities. Dani’s most recent work is a documentary short about their mother’s experiences marrying a white American man, and raising bi-racial, bi-national children. The film “Untitled Mom Doc” premiered at the DC Asian Pacific American film festival and screened at the DC Shorts Online Festival and Doc Youth Doc Short festival in Astoria, Queens. Dani has worked as an Assistant Editor at Modern Education Digital Media Limited in Hong Kong. They are a recent graduate of the Film and Video Studies program at George Mason University (with honors).

Kai Tillman Sound

Kai Tillman – Production Sound Mixer (he/they) Kai’s award-winning short films include the incredible fiction film Hey Man (2022) about a queer transmasculine person who starts driving for a rideshare company to pay for top surgery and the intimate cross-border documentary Por Ellas (2012) virtually reuniting a mother in the US with her daughters in rural Mexico, amongst other shorts. Their astute field recording includes shorts and features in fiction and documentary, commercials and television. Kai is part of , mentoring and training homeless and marginalized youth to be directors of their own films and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Luka Fisher Composer

Luka Fisher – Composer (she/her) Luka Fisher is a queer woman of the trans experience. She is an artist, composer and cultural producer known for her work with queer musicians and performance artists. She holds an MFA in photo/media and integrated media from CalArts.��Her music has been featured on compilations from Delusional Records, Springstoff, Dublab, and Silber Records. She served as an associate producer and actress in Lyle Kash’s majority trans cast and crew feature film Death and Bowling. Together with Kyler O’Neal she wrote music for Invertigo Dance Company’s interdisciplinary trans performance Walk The Walk in 2023. Most recently she has been the producer and music supervisor for “The Lovers” a queer web series by Daviel Shy that explores intimacy and community during the early days of the pandemic.

Grey Copeland Researcher

Grey Copeland – Researcher + Graphic Designer��(they/he) is an African American nonbinary person living in southern Virginia and attends George Mason University in northern Virginia for a Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design and language credit in Korean.�� Grey has worked for a department at VHC Health as a Graphic Designer making presentations and advertising collateral. They produce freelance commissions in 2D Illustration and graphic design for various clients.��Grey’s inspiration derives from films, science fiction books, comics, horror, and fantasy video games, like Dungeon and Dragons, storytelling by Neil Gaiman, the music of David Bowie, and films of Steven Spielberg. Grey is launching a webtoon comic called, “Hollow Hives” which will be a futuristic world where a found family of LGBTQ+ characters go through conflicts to keep their home safe from a broken society.

Aubree Bernier-Clarke Camera

Aubree Bernier-Clarke (they/them) is a Cinematographer and Director based in Portland Oregon whose work consistently explores themes of gender, queerness, and social justice. As a Cinematographer, Aubree has lensed several features, series, and short films, most recently the award-winning “Framing Agnes” (dir. Chase Joynt) that premiered at Sundance 2022, winning both NEXT Innovator and NEXT Audience awards. As a director, their documentary short A Normal Girl (2019) about intersex activist Pidgeon Pagonis premiered at BFI Flare in London, won the Grand Jury Award at the United Nations Association Film Festival, and screened at the American Pavilion at Cannes Film Festival. In 2022, Aubree was selected as an ITVS Humanities Documentary Development Fellow, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, to develop and Direct a feature based on their short titled (G is producing their film).

Tomasz Gęza is a queer Cinematographer based in New York City, all the way from a small town in Poland. In his work, Tomasz focuses on amplifying the voices of marginalized communities, and uses our world’s natural landscapes as the central backdrop of his storytelling. He hopes to share the beauty that lies beyond the gray concrete, showing us the wonderful, twisted, diverse and magical nature of this world, and that no one is ever truly alone.

Emilia Quinton Color/Finishing

Emilia Quinton Colorist Falling into film from a career as an advertising copywriter, Emilia understands the power of words and images when they come together in engaging stories.��Her work has spanned a plethora of narrative short films, documentaries, commercials and photography and her films include (made with Eli) and . Her personal work explores the challenge of navigating complex identities and social systems. Emilia takes inspiration from her formative years living and working within the quiet beauty of the Pacific Northwest. She loves dogs and chocolate and getting the perfect shot at golden hour.

Sweet Land Screenings

Christine Weber — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 18:28:15 +0000

SWEET LAND SCREENINGS

Thursday, May 23, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
PCC Sylvania campus
The Little Theatre
(on the outside of the CT building across from the Performing Arts Center)

Wednesday, May 29, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
PCC Southeast campus
Scott 207

This coming May the North View Gallery is pleased to host two screenings of which was first performed on the lands inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples in what is now called the Los Angeles State Historic Park. The first performances took place in February of 2020, before the pandemic halted in-person events.

Sweet Land is a grotesque historical pageant that disrupts the dominant narrative of American identity. It uses the first Thanksgiving to expose the erasures of history and how those erasures support continued settler colonial violence.

Sweet Land is the result of a highly collaborative and multi-perspectival approach. Composer Du Yun is a Chinese immigrant whose recent work originates from what she states is “a lack of understanding and empathy around immigration”. Composer Raven Chacon is a composer, performer and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multidisciplinary artist who interweaves performance and political action to communicate stories about 21st-century Indigeneity. He co-directs Sweet Land with Yuval Sharon, the Founder and Artistic Director of The Industry and a 2017 MacArthur Fellow.

The Sweet Land screenings are part of the Refractions screening series from the North View Gallery, made possible through a grant from the . Refractions features artists who use video, animation, and performance to refract or bend narrative directions by exposing the complicated realities of cultural myths, colonization, protracted international wars, migration, and the implications of past violence on potential futures.

Graphic design by Matt Foster.