Art Opening: Annexation & Assimilation: Exploring City Archives East of 82nd Ave

February 01, 2017

Annexation & Assimilation: Exploring City Archives East of 82nd Ave 
February 16 - April 28, 2017 
Exhibition Opening: Thursday, February 16, 6 to 8 p.m.  

Artist Sabina Zeba Haque’s year-long residency at the Portland Archives and Records Center (PARC) culminates in an exhibition that focuses on the tumultuous and fraught process of annexation and growth of East Portland’s incredibly diverse population. 

Listen to Haque's interview about the exhibition on OPB's Think Out Loud with Dave Miller

Collaborating with neighborhood residents and PARC, Haque examines the history of place as a marker of exclusion and inclusion. She weaves a portrait of inclusive civic identity through hand-drawn animation, video projections, poster installations and a theater performance.

RSVP for the free opening here

Open Signal is proud to present Sabina Haque’s “Annexation and Assimilation” on-site through April 28 to continue our commitment to regional storytelling on current climates and conditions that affect our understanding of and residence in Portland. 

Haque’s commitment to research, digital storytelling and providing a platform for East Portland residents’ voices collectively accentuates our recent history, and gives the audience a sense of responsibility over the near future of Portland’s urban development. 

The distribution of knowledge comes in many forms, and Haque’s installation shows the variance of ways media can present cultural histories and multiple voices of our city.

From farm culture to car culture, from ethnically homogenous to diverse, from English to Hmong, Vietnamese, Spanish, Mandarin and Somali, “Annexation & Assimilation” explores the changing cultural and physical landscape and shifting demographics over the last 100 years. The result is an accelerating and visceral mash-up of Portland’s past and present along this boundary, which is at once both real and imagined. 

Annexation & Assimilation is sponsored in part by City of Portland Percent for Art Program, administered by Regional Arts and Culture Council.

See the exhibition during Open Signal's regular public hours, Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday through Sunday, noon to 8 p.m.


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