Laura Lo Forti wants to make sure nobody ever forgets about the legacy of Vanport, the one-time city located in the area of North Portland destroyed by flood in 1948.
It’s now nine years that her Vanport Mosaic documents stories, preserves the history and shares the knowledge of Vanport.
The ninth Vanport Mosaic Festival will be May 18-June 1 at locations around Portland.
A self-described “story midwife,” Lo Forti co-founded and co-directs Vanport Mosaic, and approaches the festival and mission of Vanport Mosaic with much enthusiasm.
“We’re entering our 10th year. We’re so grateful to continue to find pieces of the mosaic,” she said. “There’s connection to the Vanport story through artifacts, letters, photos, scrapbooks, memories.”
The World War II-era Vanport was a community supported by a shipyard, until a Columbia River dike busted, destroying the city in 1948.
Perhaps the biggest news of all is the Vanport Mosaic is working to transform the Historic Alberta House, 5131 N.E. 23rd Ave., into a permanent Vanport living museum that includes the exhibit “Vanport: The Surge of Social Change at the Historic Alberta House.” It’s already happening and people will be able to visit the museum during the festival, Lo Forti said. She hopes people will bring artifacts and get in touch with her to record oral histories to add to the collection.
“There is a performance exhibit, but we want to build on that,” Lo Forti said. “With all the artifacts and letters and photos and stories, we want to make it a mini-museum for now, and people will visit during the festival and see the seeds of something even bigger.”
Opening night will again feature an invitation-only gathering of Vanport survivors and ancestors.
“They’re still here kicking it. They love being together,” Lo Forti said.
The next night, there’ll be a screening of “Buffalo Soldier: Fighting on Two Fronts” by Dru Holley, 2 p.m. Sunday, May 19 at Open Signal, 2766 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Another highlight is “Precipice: re-membering, forgetting and claiming home,” a solo play conceived and performed by Damaris Webb, a third-generation Black Portlander and Oregonian, 7:30 p.m. May 25 and 2 p.m. May26 at Historic Alberta House. It’s a fluid poem that tenderly holds place, house/home and mementos as doorways to connection, while deeply questioning materialistic notions of ownership.
There will be opportunities throughout the festival to record oral histories and digitize photos, documents, news clips, scrapbooks and more to add to the living archive “Lost City, Living Memories: Vanport Through The Voices of Its Residents.” People can reach out to info@vanport mosaic.org to contribute to the ongoing project.
Closing day, noon-4 p.m. June 1, will be when the old “Day of Remembrance” takes place at the Delta Park Expo Center. It’s now called “An Afternoon for Rooting and Re-storying.” There’ll be a pop-up exhibit, tours, performance, talks and activities on the once Indigenous land where Vanport once stood and where Japanese Americans faced incarceration during World War II internment.
“It’s a reactivation of memory,” Lo Forti said. “It’ll be poetic and raw.”
Included at 1 p.m. will be the Portland Assembly Project by Chisao Hata and developed with Heath Hyun Houghton. It explores the lives of the Japanese Americans subjected to internment and features Senyru poetry and music.
More: vanportmosaic.org .
Most Popular
Comments / 0