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While some Portland businesses are boarding up their windows in advance of Election Day, an art gallery at Portland Community College is displaying the murals and graffiti that covered the downtown Portland Apple store during the 2020 racial justice protests.
Graffiti as Resistance will be on display in the North View Gallery on Nov. 5 through Dec. 13 on the PCC Sylvania Campus. It brings together research conducted by PCC’s Dr. Lorena Nascimento and Cherise Frehner, who have been documenting graffiti in Rio de Janeiro, New Orleans and now Portland, according to a press release. The show will “explore storytelling on the streets as a form of resistance.”
Visitors to the gallery will be viewing reproductions of the 2020 murals in downtown Portland, juxtaposed next to graffiti from Rio and New Orleans.
The organization Don’t Shoot Portland documented and preserved the panels covering the Apple store, which started as a commissioned mural with paintings of killed Black Americans such as Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and grew to include calls to action and protest statements from the community, such as “#Vote Out Hate,” “You Matter” and “100% Human.”
“What is the role of graffiti in initiating public dialogue at the local and global level, around issues of race and inequality?” ask exhibition organizers in the statement. “What is the role of graffiti as a tool for social change?”
SEE IT: Graffiti as Resistance at North View Gallery, PCC Sylvania Campus, 12000 SW 49th Ave., pcc.edu/galleries. (Follow signs to the bookstore and parking lot 9. The gallery is in the Communications and Technology building in room 214.) Opening reception noon-2 pm Tuesday, Nov. 5. Show on view through Dec. 13. Gallery hours 9 am-5 pm Monday-Friday. Free.