Illuminating Voices Video Projections

The site of the large-scale projections is the newly constructed Orchards of 82nd space at SE 82nd Ave. & Division St., home to the Asian American Network’s new headquarters and the ROSE affordable housing development for 40 families. This is a site of historical and on-going growth, displacement, erasure, and change in Portland over the last century. Illuminating Voices includes archival photographs of the Japanese-American community, and the Shiogi family in particular, who collectively farmed a total of 665 acres of land in the Montavilla neighborhood until their forced internment during WWII. During the war, much of that land was seized, resulting in the destruction and disruption of an entire community. Over the course of the last century, Japanese-Americans, along with newly arrived immigrants from Vietnam, Laos and other Asian countries, were challenged to rebuild and reimagine their lives. The interactive projections will also include oral and hand written stories of the lived experiences of young people growing up in East PDX talking about their hopes and concerns for their community.  This installation offers an immersive, experiential environment of overlapping projections putting the viewer in the middle of an intersection at 82nd Ave, the present-day geographical center of Portland.