A Constellation of Pathways: Portland Monument Projects in 2025

A Constellation of Pathways: Portland Monument Projects in 2025

Speakers: Jason Brown, ridhi d’cruz, Patricia Frobes, David Hedberg, Laura Lo Forti, Jordan Rosenblum, Ranya Salvant, Aaron Nigel Smith, Troy Winslow, Illia Yakovenko, and Performers from the opera York the Explorer

16th, November 2025

Free open to the public

Sponsored by the Studio Art Department

Vollum Lecture Hall

A symposium inspired by the ongoing and unresolved conversations about memorialization in the city of Portland. Our city is among many in the U.S. with monumental quandaries including: which monuments to keep, which to remove, and the even more daunting question of which new projects should be enacted and how we should go about deciding. The dialogue around this topic gave form to a new Fall 2025 course taught by Master Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr. entitled Monuments, Movements, and Manifestos at Reed college. The course was awarded a Mellon Periclean Faculty Leader grant to support course development which has been utilized to fund a series of panels to support student learning, comprehension, and engagement all the while serving as a contemporary foray into the topic for Portland at large.

Lite Breakfast + Coffee + Introduction 9:30am

Storied Ground: Citizen Initiated Memorials At Peninsula Park - 10:30am

Starting in 2021 the  Friends of Peninsula Park Rose Garden convened with artists and historians to consider how the history of the park was being told through interpretive signage. Through these conversations the Storied Ground project was conceived to tell diverse, place based histories of the cherished park. Working collaboratively over five years, the panelists along with artist Julie Hammond, Judy Farmer, Bill Coffman, with the help of many others, have created over twenty interpretive signs installed throughout Peninsula Park telling stories ranging from Japanese-American basketball players who played at the park and were later interned in 1942, Coach Pittman wrestling coach who has been working for thirty years to change the lives of young people today, and the stewardship of the white oak by native peoples, and much more. The panelists will discuss the ethos and process of developing the project, and lessons learned for other folks interested in similar initiatives.

Lunch with facilitated participatory conversation: Monuments & Memorials: Who, What, Where, When, and Why? - 11:45am

Contemporary Perspectives on Monuments and Memorialization - 1:00pm

In 2020 several notable city monuments were toppled or removed, including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, former Oregonian publisher Harvey Scott, The Promised Land, a statue of an unnamed family meant to honor Oregon settlers, and the Thompson Elk. In 2025 we’ve seen responses to these events lacking in meaningful public community dialogue with depth that asks and answers challenging questions with plans in the present about the future being curiouser still. This panel brings together artists and administrators working closely within and around the contemporary conversations about the monuments and memorials scene locally to discuss their experiences and feelings about how Portland might begin to explore memorialization as a meaningful and community nourishing practice.

Excerpts from the opera: York the Explorer - 2:10pm

Monumentalization of York: An Untold Legacy - 2:30pm

Description: In February 2021 a temporary bust of York, the only African American on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was installed by Todd McGrain in Mount Tabor Park replacing the statue of Harvey W. Scott, which had been toppled in October 2020. On July 28, vandals tore down and seriously damaged the sculpture however since this event the city of Portland has commissioned a permanent bronze bust of York which has yet to be cited. This panel brings together Oregonian scholars working closely with the York story to discuss what it means for us to memorialize his legacy today as well as exploring ideas around cultural representation in Portland monument project efforts across time and into the future.

Keynote: Envisioning and Enacting the Justice For Keaton Otis Memorial Project - 3:30

On May 12, 2010, Keaton Otis’ 25-year-old life was cut short by Portland Police for “looking like a gangster” while driving. Afterward, his father Fred Bryant began a monthly vigil at the site of his son’s murder to rally around police reform. Fred passed after a stroke—with a broken heart—in 2013. The Justice For Keaton Otis (JFKO) collective now hosts monthly vigils, and since 2019, has convened racial and community justice organizations to envision and create an artistic memorial to Keaton’s life. The memorial art parklet was just installed and unveiled this past vigil on Oct 12, 2025.

The collective links this memorial to the struggle for justice for all of those killed by police, the larger Black community as a whole, and our love for Black imagination, justice, and community thriving in Portland.

ridhi d’cruz is a collective member and will share some learnings from the journey to imagining and installing this memorial to Keaton, to Fred, and to all loved ones stolen by state violence.