Last week, Portland State University hosted its first ever Indigenous Foods Summit. Across two days, presenters taught a host of workshops sharing place-based knowledge focused around food sovereignty. Emma Johnson, Cowlitz, is the program coordinator of the Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge Program at PSU, and Isabel Lacourse is a Colville descendant and on the planning team for the Northwest Indigenous Food Sovereignty Alliance. They both organized the summit and join us to share their takeaways from the inaugural event. 9/16 Portland State University hosted their first ever Indigenous Foods Summit last week, with presenters who taught a host of workshops on topics sharing place-based knowledge focused on food sovereignty. We’ll hear from two of the organizers and presenters about some takeaways from the inaugural event.
PassinArt began in 1982 and is the oldest continuously operating Black theatre in Oregon. Based in Portland, its mission is to “entertain, educate, and inspire artists and audiences while addressing critical issues facing our community.” The name is a nod to its vision of passing on art, history and culture from one generation to another. The company doesn’t just mount full scale theatrical productions, it also holds free monthly readings, festivals of new works, and other events. And this weekend, PassinArt is inviting the whole Portland community to its Open House & Block Party. Artistic Director Jerry Foster says they want to introduce people to the new headquarters at the Albina Arts Center on NE Killingsworth, along with all the different kinds of work PassinArt offers. We talk with Foster to learn about the kinds of plays the company stages, the new work it supports, and the community events it hosts.
Ralph Bloemers has spent over two decades working in and around wildfire science and technology. He’s used documentary filmmaking as a vehicle for probing and documenting wildfires across the American West and contends that while wildfires are inevitable in Oregon, catastrophic community loss doesn’t have to be. He makes a case for wildfire readiness techniques that homeowners can employ to reduce the risk of community conflagration or urban wildfire, like Spokane communities endured earlier this summer. We’ll speak to Bloemers about his recommendations for how homeowners can assist firefighters through wildfire readiness techniques and how his work documenting wildfires has informed his perspective on wildfire management.
Heaven Doherty is the City of Hermiston’s building inspector. She starts her day at 7 a.m. by answering emails and sorting through same-day inspection requests filling up her inbox. By 9 a.m., she is in the field, doing 20 to 50 inspections until about 5 p.m. on projects ranging from single family homes to apartment complexes with hundreds of units and data centers the size of football fields. On one particularly busy day, she said she racked up six miles’ worth of steps while walking through job sites to inspect the plumbing, wiring, load-bearing walls and more. And now, after just 18 months on the job, Doherty was awarded the Building Inspector of the Year award from the Oregon Building Officials Association. The Hermiston Herald previously reported news of the award which comes amid a construction boom in the city and rising demand for inspection services. Last year, Hermiston generated more than $200 million in building permit fees and 130 new homes were built. Doherty shares what it’s like to be, as she says, a building inspector “living my best life in Eastern Oregon.”
The Sonic Silents film festival opens Thursday at the Hollywood Theatre in Portland. The film composer and multi-instrumentalist Mark Orton recruited over 20 musicians to compose new, original scores for a curated selection of silent films at the inaugural festival that he created. Orton and his fellow musicians will peform the new compositions live in front of audiences inside the 100-year-old theater. Among the highlights is Buster Keaton’s “The General,” which was filmed in Cottage Grove in 1926. For the film’s and the theater’s centennial anniversary, Orton will premiere an updated score he wrote for the 90th anniversary of “The General.” Todd Sickafoose, a Eugene-based Tony and Grammy Award-winning producer, composer and bassist will join Orton on stage for the weekend performances. Sickafoose has also contributed an original score for “Daisy Doodad’s Dial,” a 1914 comedy short showing at the festival. Orton and Sickafoose join us for a preview of Sonic Silents.