This Is / Is This a City

Commissioned artwork for Portland Textile Month’s TextileX New Traditions Festival

For TextileX Month's New Traditions Festival, I'm collecting descriptions of Portland (the good, the bad, and the ugly) directly from current residents and combining these with formal descriptions of the city throughout the years — from newspaper headlines, travel sites, archival documents, etc. Using my practice of knitting in Morse code, the piece takes shape as I knit the transcript of each voice or source in a new color, simultaneously blending together the various perceptions and identities of Portland into a cohesive piece while also honoring the separate and individual nature of each description. I aim to collect a broad and diverse range of descriptions by working with local community organizations to gather responses. I will continue to collect responses and add them to the piece throughout the month-long celebration in October. In this way, the piece grows and evolves as the surrounding community directs its progress. The overall pattern that emerges will be truly unique to this city, this moment, and these people.

Spurred by recent discussions around Portland’s identity after a tumultuous year, this piece is meant to encourage conversation and exploration of questions such as: who and what speaks for a city in our modern world? How do we form an identity for a city and how do we attempt to articulate it? And what are the advantages and shortcomings of language in this endeavor? This artwork compares and contrasts perceptions of Portland—how they do and do not line up from internal and external vantage points—and invites consideration of how an individual or community impacts the overall perception of a region.

Several free community knitting workshops in conjunction with this project are made possible by a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council; please see the Workshops page for upcoming opportunities.

This project is made possible in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council.

If you are a current Portland resident interested in contributing to the project, please fill out the form below.

How would you describe Portland?

Descriptions can be as long or short, silly or serious, broad or focused, kind or outraged, as you like. Submissions are anonymous.