Community Events
Open Mic at The BLACK Gallery
We Built You A Garden is the third installment of Metro’s Community Voices, a multimedia storytelling project that invites residents at different Metro Affordable Housing Bond-funded communities to explore the meaning of home through photography, writing and collective reflection.
For this installment, nine residents at the Strong Empowerment Village participated in a summer workshop series with artists Gwen Hoeffgen and Domenic Toliver. They used 35mm black & white and color film photography and creative writing to explore what the members of the community have inherited, what they built, what is changing, and what they want to leave growing for the next generation.
Oct. 16, 6pm to 8pm: Open Mic with Brianna Renae featuring DJ Afreakano, guest poets and artists at The BLACK Gallery
A conversation about the past, present, and future of Portland through the experiences of the people who live, work, organize, and build here. Artists, activists, community members, youth and Metro come together to consider what we have inherited, what we have built, what is changing, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation.
We Built You a Garden at The BLACK Gallery
We Built You a Garden is the third installment of Metro’s Community Voices project, a multimedia storytelling initiative that invites residents of Metro Affordable Housing Bond-funded communities to explore the meaning of home through photography, writing and collective reflection. Hosted through a summer workshop series at the Strong Empowerment Village in partnership with artists Gwen Hoeffgen and Domenic Toliver, the project centers the experiences of residents with ties to North and Northeast Portland.
Through weekly workshops and the use of film photography and creative writing, participants documented places, people and memories that shape their understanding of home, legacy and belonging. Their work considers displacement, resilience and community history, creating a powerful collection of stories that honor the past while imagining what can continue to grow.
Ultimately, We Built You a Garden asks what’s been inherited, what’s been built, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation. It speaks to the ongoing impact of displacement in Portland for the Black community, but it also affirms what it took — and continues to take — to nourish, tend and build home.
Exhibition Events:
Oct. 23, 6pm to 8pm: Community Conversation at The BLACK Gallery
A conversation about the past, present, and future of Portland through the experiences of the people who live, work, organize, and build here. Artists, activists, community members, youth and Metro come together to consider what we have inherited, what we have built, what is changing, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation.
The BLACK Gallery will be open to the public on the following Sundays from 1pm to 4pm during the exhibition’s display: Oct. 11, Oct. 18, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1. Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com to arrange visits or student groups during additional hours not listed.
We Built You A Garden: Community Conversation
We Built You A Garden is the third installment of Metro’s Community Voices, a multimedia storytelling project that invites residents at different Metro Affordable Housing Bond-funded communities to explore the meaning of home through photography, writing and collective reflection.
For this installment, nine residents at the Strong Empowerment Village participated in a summer workshop series with artists Gwen Hoeffgen and Domenic Toliver. They used 35mm black & white and color film photography and creative writing to explore what the members of the community have inherited, what they built, what is changing, and what they want to leave growing for the next generation.
Oct. 23, 6pm to 8pm: Community Conversation at The BLACK GalleryA conversation about the past, present, and future of Portland through the experiences of the people who live, work, organize, and build here. Artists, activists, community members, youth and Metro come together to consider what we have inherited, what we have built, what is changing, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation.
Liberated Archives at Oregon Historical Society!
Learn about the collections at OHS, work on personal archiving projects, ask how to preserve your home videos, audio tapes and more!
Free “archival kits” made up of various archival supplies, tools, and enclosures to help start your archiving project will be available in limited quantities on a first come first served basis. If you have questions about the kits, please email matthew.cowan@ohs.org for more information.
The Oregon Historical Society is hosting a free community archives event in collaboration withDon’t Shoot PDX and Portland City Archives. This event is part of the monthly series, “Portland in Black: Documenting Our Lives in the City of Roses” which is part of the broader program "Liberated Archives for Black Lives" Please note that this event will take place at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library (1200 SW Park Ave.)
You’re invited to learn more about the collections at the Oregon Historical Society, work on personal archiving projects, connect with community members, and receive guidance from the memory workers from Don't Shoot PDX, the Oregon Historical Society, Oregon Public Broadcasting and Portland City Archives. This month, we will be focusing on film and video recordings – with film archivists on hand from Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Oregon Historical Society - but all archival and/or research questions are welcome! You will have the opportunity to:
Discover the resources available at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library
Receive advice on viewing, digitizing and preserving your film and video.
Get questions answered regarding how best to manage your personal archives of papers, photographs, videotapes, etc.
Digitize materials at a scanning station; please note we will not be able to digitize film, video or audio recordings during the event.
Bring cherished materials documenting your family or community histories and learn how to make them last for generations to come.
Items you may want to bring if working on an archival project:
Family photographs, scrapbooks, albums
Letters, correspondence, diaries
Clippings, publications, books
Home movies, music recordings, films
Open Hours at the Black Cultural Library
Our reference library holds an expansive collection of rare and limited literary works from civil rights advocates, artists and scholars.
The Black Cultural Library will host open hours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, but is also available for groups or research appointments.
For more information or to schedule your visit outside of our open hours, please email blackmemorylab@dontshootpdx.org
Opening Reception: Liberated Archives for Black Lives at The Low End
Celebrate Archives Month with Don’t Shoot Portland!
Join us for a special evening as we listen to archival interviews featuring Maya Angelou, Septima Clark, Angela Davis, Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, Betty Shabazz X, and many more.
This is our first public listening of I Dream a World—a sweeping archive of interviews with 75 of the most influential Black women in American history. To celebrate Archives Month, we invite you to join us in listening to these newly unearthed oral histories and audio gems. We are truly honored to host this intimate listening session centering these rare interviews, exclusively granted by the Lanker Estate and the University of Oregon Libraries.
Created in the late 1980s by Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Brian Lanker, this body of work features voices such as Alexa Canady, Althea Gibson, Lena Horne, Toni Morrison and many others whose wisdom, courage, and lived experience shaped the political, cultural, and artistic landscape of the 20th century.
These rarely heard interviews are now available for the first time courtesy of the Brian Lanker Collection, coinciding with a poignant opportunity for reflection and the courage to create a better world.
We Built You a Garden at The BLACK Gallery
We Built You a Garden is the third installment of Metro’s Community Voices project, a multimedia storytelling initiative that invites residents of Metro Affordable Housing Bond-funded communities to explore the meaning of home through photography, writing and collective reflection. Hosted through a summer workshop series at the Strong Empowerment Village in partnership with artists Gwen Hoeffgen and Domenic Toliver, the project centers the experiences of residents with ties to North and Northeast Portland.
Through weekly workshops and the use of film photography and creative writing, participants documented places, people and memories that shape their understanding of home, legacy and belonging. Their work considers displacement, resilience and community history, creating a powerful collection of stories that honor the past while imagining what can continue to grow.
Ultimately, We Built You a Garden asks what’s been inherited, what’s been built, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation. It speaks to the ongoing impact of displacement in Portland for the Black community, but it also affirms what it took — and continues to take — to nourish, tend and build home.
Exhibition Events:
Oct. 23, 6pm to 8pm: Community Conversation at The BLACK Gallery
A conversation about the past, present, and future of Portland through the experiences of the people who live, work, organize, and build here. Artists, activists, community members, youth and Metro come together to consider what we have inherited, what we have built, what is changing, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation.
The BLACK Gallery will be open to the public on the following Sundays from 1pm to 4pm during the exhibition’s display: Oct. 11, Oct. 18, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1. Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com to arrange visits or student groups during additional hours not listed.
We Built You a Garden at The BLACK Gallery
We Built You a Garden is the third installment of Metro’s Community Voices project, a multimedia storytelling initiative that invites residents of Metro Affordable Housing Bond-funded communities to explore the meaning of home through photography, writing and collective reflection. Hosted through a summer workshop series at the Strong Empowerment Village in partnership with artists Gwen Hoeffgen and Domenic Toliver, the project centers the experiences of residents with ties to North and Northeast Portland.
Through weekly workshops and the use of film photography and creative writing, participants documented places, people and memories that shape their understanding of home, legacy and belonging. Their work considers displacement, resilience and community history, creating a powerful collection of stories that honor the past while imagining what can continue to grow.
Ultimately, We Built You a Garden asks what’s been inherited, what’s been built, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation. It speaks to the ongoing impact of displacement in Portland for the Black community, but it also affirms what it took — and continues to take — to nourish, tend and build home.
Exhibition Events:
Oct. 23, 6pm to 8pm: Community Conversation at The BLACK Gallery
A conversation about the past, present, and future of Portland through the experiences of the people who live, work, organize, and build here. Artists, activists, community members, youth and Metro come together to consider what we have inherited, what we have built, what is changing, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation.
The BLACK Gallery will be open to the public on the following Sundays from 1pm to 4pm during the exhibition’s display: Oct. 11, Oct. 18, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1. Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com to arrange visits or student groups during additional hours not listed.
Open Hours at the Black Cultural Library
Our reference library holds an expansive collection of rare and limited literary works from civil rights advocates, artists and scholars.
The Black Cultural Library will host open hours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, but is also available for groups or research appointments.
For more information or to schedule your visit outside of our open hours, please email blackmemorylab@dontshootpdx.org
Reclaim MLK Community Art Build with PNCA
Create art for social change with Don't Shoot Portland
at Pacific Northwest College of Art! Join Don't Shoot Portland for an in-person art-making event as we prepare for our annual Reclaim MLK March and protest.
More information & community partners coming soon!
Don’t Shoot Portland is an arts and education organization that promotes social justice and civic participation. Our mission is to harness the power of creative expression to inspire, educate, and mobilize communities towards equity, justice, and transformative social impact. @dontshootpdx
We Built You a Garden at The BLACK Gallery
We Built You a Garden is the third installment of Metro’s Community Voices project, a multimedia storytelling initiative that invites residents of Metro Affordable Housing Bond-funded communities to explore the meaning of home through photography, writing and collective reflection. Hosted through a summer workshop series at the Strong Empowerment Village in partnership with artists Gwen Hoeffgen and Domenic Toliver, the project centers the experiences of residents with ties to North and Northeast Portland.
Through weekly workshops and the use of film photography and creative writing, participants documented places, people and memories that shape their understanding of home, legacy and belonging. Their work considers displacement, resilience and community history, creating a powerful collection of stories that honor the past while imagining what can continue to grow.
Ultimately, We Built You a Garden asks what’s been inherited, what’s been built, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation. It speaks to the ongoing impact of displacement in Portland for the Black community, but it also affirms what it took — and continues to take — to nourish, tend and build home.
Exhibition Events:
Oct. 23, 6pm to 8pm: Community Conversation at The BLACK Gallery
A conversation about the past, present, and future of Portland through the experiences of the people who live, work, organize, and build here. Artists, activists, community members, youth and Metro come together to consider what we have inherited, what we have built, what is changing, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation.
The BLACK Gallery will be open to the public on the following Sundays from 1pm to 4pm during the exhibition’s display: Oct. 11, Oct. 18, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1. Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com to arrange visits or student groups during additional hours not listed.
Open Hours at the Black Cultural Library
Our reference library holds an expansive collection of rare and limited literary works from civil rights advocates, artists and scholars.
The Black Cultural Library will host open hours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, but is also available for groups or research appointments.
For more information or to schedule your visit outside of our open hours, please email blackmemorylab@dontshootpdx.org
Opening Reception: We Built You a Garden
We Built You a Garden is the third installment of Metro’s Community Voices project, a multimedia storytelling initiative that invites residents of Metro Affordable Housing Bond-funded communities to explore the meaning of home through photography, writing and collective reflection. Hosted through a summer workshop series at the Strong Empowerment Village in partnership with artists Gwen Hoeffgen and Domenic Toliver, the project centers the experiences of residents with ties to North and Northeast Portland.
Through weekly workshops and the use of film photography and creative writing, participants documented places, people and memories that shape their understanding of home, legacy and belonging. Their work considers displacement, resilience and community history, creating a powerful collection of stories that honor the past while imagining what can continue to grow.
Ultimately, We Built You a Garden asks what’s been inherited, what’s been built, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation. It speaks to the ongoing impact of displacement in Portland for the Black community, but it also affirms what it took — and continues to take — to nourish, tend and build home.
Exhibition Events:
Oct. 9, 5:30pm to 8pm: Exhibition Opening at The BLACK Gallery
Join us for the opening of We Built You a Garden, with remarks and refreshments as well as free copies of the project’s publication. Open to public with remarks from Metro, artists, and Don’t Shoot PDX .
Oct. 16, 6pm to 8pm: Open Mic with Brianna Renae featuring DJ Afreakano, guest poets and artists at The BLACK Gallery
A conversation about the past, present, and future of Portland through the experiences of the people who live, work, organize, and build here. Artists, activists, community members, youth and Metro come together to consider what we have inherited, what we have built, what is changing, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation.
Oct. 23, 6pm to 8pm: Community Conversation at The BLACK Gallery
A conversation about the past, present, and future of Portland through the experiences of the people who live, work, organize, and build here. Artists, activists, community members, youth and Metro come together to consider what we have inherited, what we have built, what is changing, and what we want to leave growing for the next generation.
The BLACK Gallery will be open to the public on the following Sundays from 1pm to 4pm during the exhibition’s display: Oct. 11, Oct. 18, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1. Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com to arrange visits or student groups during additional hours not listed.
Mama C at the Black Memory Lab
Long-time friends, collaborators, and comrades are coming together to honor a living, breathing, creative testament to the Pan-African Dream at the Black Cultural Memory Lab & Library. This is about celebrating what we have in common and the diversity of our experience and expression through time and space from the Motherland, through the Diaspora and Black.
Charlotte Hill O'Neal is co-director of the United African American Community Center, now called the United African Alliance Community Center. The UAACC, a non-profit NGO, was founded in 1991 by O'Neal and her husband, Pete O’Neal, with the goal of empowering black urban and rural youth in Tanzania. Mama C is an internationally acclaimed author, poet, songwriter and traditional African instrumentalist.
Internationally acclaimed singer, percussionist, guitarist, and dancer, Okaidja Afroso creates modern African music that effortlessly flows between tradition and innovation; he “is an artist with staying power.” (Afropop Worldwide) With roots in the traditions of the Ga-Dangme people of Ghana and a spirit shaped by decades of global travel and collaboration, he invites audiences into a celebration of humanity’s shared rhythms with music that defies borders. Okaidja will perform with Janny Flow, his creative collborator and partner who is a world renowned Ghanaian singer and dancer.
Mic Crenshaw was born and raised in Chicago and Minneapolis and currently resides in Portland Oregon. Crenshaw is an independent Hip Hop artist, respected emcee, poet, educator and activist. As the Lead U.S. Organizer for the Afrikan HipHop Caravan from 2013 - 2018, Crenshaw uses Cultural Activism as a means to develop international solidarity related to Human Rights and Justice through Hip Hop and Popular Education.
Fall of Freedom
Fall of Freedom returns for its second year — expanding the national call to creative resistance. FoF is an open instigation to artists, venues and institutions across all disciplines to put your work in the world on October 2nd, 3rd, & 4th, countering fascist repression and censorship with joyful communities of defiant creativity. Art matters. Courage is contagious. Take part!
Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist Autumn Breon has announced her first solo exhibition in Portland, Maroon Portals at The BLACK Gallery. Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
Installation view of Maroon Portals by Autumn Breon at The BLACK Gallery powered by Don’t Shoot Portland
The Care Machine, 2023, Loud Refusals, 2025, Quiet Adjustments, 2023, Have You Adorned Yourself Today?, 2023, Choose Your Protective Style, 2023, Cosmic Clapbacks, 2025
Installation view of Maroon Portals by Autumn Breon at The BLACK Gallery powered by Don’t Shoot Portland
Head to Freedom, I Moved Myself, Together Free, 2026
52” x 37”
Woven cotton, cubic zirconia earrings, rhinestones
Just the Facts, 2024
5.5” x 6.5” x 3.5”
Vinyl on wood
Maroon Portals
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Visits to The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Group and class visits are encouraged.
Photo credit: Ceraun the DivaNun
The Care Machine | Photo Credit: Elon Schoenholz
Quiet Adjustments & Loud Refusals | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Head to Freedom | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Open Hours at the Black Cultural Library
Our reference library holds an expansive collection of rare and limited literary works from civil rights advocates, artists and scholars.
The Black Cultural Library will host open hours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, but is also available for groups or research appointments.
For more information or to schedule your visit outside of our open hours, please email blackmemorylab@dontshootpdx.org
Room for Conversation: Memory, Violence & Belonging
What connects brain injury, gun violence, public policy, and the spaces we call home? Join us at the Black Memory Lab for a community conversation exploring how violence lives in our bodies, our communities, and our institutions - and how advocacy, memory, and collective care can help us imagine something different.
Room for Conversation: Memory, Violence and Belonging
Saturday, September 26 from 12-4pm at Black Memory Lab 510 SW 3rd Avenue Suite 400
Featuring David Kracke, Brain Injury Policy Coordinator at the Center for Brain Injury Research & Training; Dr. Shani Evans, sociologist and author of We Belong Here: Gentrification, White Spacemaking, and a Black Sense of Place; and Armondo Payton Jr., a local community advocate supporting survivors in the aftermath of gun violence.
Together we’ll explore the intersections of brain injury, gun violence, policy, race, place, memory, and belonging -and what it means to build communities rooted in safety, dignity, and collective care.
Portland in Black: Free Archiving Workshop with Don't Shoot Portland!
Portland in Black: Documenting Our History in the City of Roses
Saturday, September 26 from 10am-12pm at The Black Memory Lab
510 SW 3rd Avenue Portland, OR 97204
Join Don’t Shoot Portland and the Portland City Archives for our monthly event in a series focused on building community learning archival skills. Write identifying information for your family photos and keepsakes, create a file plan for your digital collections, or organize and scan your keepsakes.
Portland in Black is a chance to work on personal archiving projects and receive guidance from experienced memory workers and professional archivists.
________________
Don’t Shoot Portland is an arts and education organization that promotes social justice and civic participation. Our mission is to harness the power of creative expression to inspire, educate, and mobilize communities towards equity, justice, and transformative social impact. The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX is an extension of this programming, centering art as activism to showcase underrepresented artists. @dontshootpdx @theblackgallerypdx
Maroon Portals
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Visits to The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Group and class visits are encouraged.
Photo credit: Ceraun the DivaNun
The Care Machine | Photo Credit: Elon Schoenholz
Quiet Adjustments & Loud Refusals | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Head to Freedom | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Maroon Portals
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Visits to The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Group and class visits are encouraged.
Photo credit: Ceraun the DivaNun
The Care Machine | Photo Credit: Elon Schoenholz
Quiet Adjustments & Loud Refusals | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Head to Freedom | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Open Hours at the Black Cultural Library
Our reference library holds an expansive collection of rare and limited literary works from civil rights advocates, artists and scholars.
The Black Cultural Library will host open hours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, but is also available for groups or research appointments.
For more information or to schedule your visit outside of our open hours, please email blackmemorylab@dontshootpdx.org
Art and Design on 9th Ave
ART + DESIGN ON 9TH
Join us on Thursday, September 10 from 5 - 8 pm for an evening to sip, stroll, and experience Portland's creative scene in the Pearl District. Visit premiere art galleries and design showrooms on NW 9th Avenue while enjoying a curated wine tasting from select Willamette Valley Vineyards. Explore participating vineyards and partnered showrooms and galleries.
Evesham Wood and Haden Fig Winery at Adams and Ollman
Stoller at Ann Sacks
Copious Cellars at Black Gallery
Meliora Wine Company at Blackfish Gallery
Elk Cove at Elizabeth Leach Gallery
Rain Dance Vineyards at Hive
Patricia Green Cellars at The Joinery
Rex Hill at Laura Vincent Design & Gallery
Portland Wine Co. at SMG Collective
Kandu Ranch Wines at Waterstone Gallery
Sokol Blosser Winery at Visual Comfort
Finite Cellars at Light + Home
Dominio IV Wines at Pedini NW
Maroon Portals
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Visits to The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Group and class visits are encouraged.
Photo credit: Ceraun the DivaNun
The Care Machine | Photo Credit: Elon Schoenholz
Quiet Adjustments & Loud Refusals | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Head to Freedom | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Maroon Portals
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Visits to The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Group and class visits are encouraged.
Photo credit: Ceraun the DivaNun
The Care Machine | Photo Credit: Elon Schoenholz
Quiet Adjustments & Loud Refusals | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Head to Freedom | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
1st Annual Garden Party at Hughes Food Forest!
We are hosting our first annual garden party to celebrate the second season of our food forest in NE Portland. This project has been incredible and we are so excited to continue raising awareness about the intersections of food and social justice. Thank you to our coalition partners, PDX Food Forest and our community volunteers for showing up and making this a reality! Learn more about Hughes Food Forest, celebrate the hard work thus far, and get involved.
Registration is not required, but please consider making a donation with your RSVP to support this programming, or email hughesfoodforest@dontshootpdx.org to volunteer or become a community sponsor!
Don’t Shoot PDX is an arts and education nonprofit that promotes social justice and civic participation. Through free year-round programming, DSPDX advocates for community members facing racism and discrimination by providing legal representation and direct advocacy.
A Women's Basketball Fashion Archive at Expensify
Art & education nonprofit Don't Shoot Portlands' latest Liberated Archives exhibition launches the first ever archive of women’s basketball fashion featured by The Fitted W, a published work by Hypatia Sorunke. A Women’s Basketball Fashion Archive is the first exhibition of the photobook that showcases Sorunkes' travels from coast to coast documenting 50+ WNBA games in 12 different cities during the historic 2024 Season.
This is the largest fine arts project undertaken to archive the professional women’s basketball space. It is a direct and unique response to fill the narrative gaps in the history of women’s sports. While focusing on mapping black queer migration patterns, Sorunke uncovered the lack of documentation around the transitive and contemporary industry of professional women’s basketball. Working with a point and shoot film camera, an instant polaroid, and their LGBTQIA+ community, Sorunke worked to capture the importance of safeguarding women’s sports as a space where Black, Queer, and Transgendered individuals can exist and dream in. The future success of women’s sports relies on the ability to build a community where everyone can be themselves and see themselves in it, marking the project as a tribute to understanding the necessity and impact of queered relational aesthetics in innovating self-expression in the global cultural landscape of women’s sports.
A Womens’ Basketball Fashion Archive
On view at at Expensify from June 12 - August 28, 2026
Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com for guided tours and visits outside of public event hours.
Maroon Portals
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Visits to The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Group and class visits are encouraged.
Photo credit: Ceraun the DivaNun
The Care Machine | Photo Credit: Elon Schoenholz
Quiet Adjustments & Loud Refusals | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Head to Freedom | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Open Hours at the Black Cultural Library (Copy) (Copy)
Our reference library holds an expansive collection of rare and limited literary works from civil rights advocates, artists and scholars.
The Black Cultural Library will host open hours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, but is also available for groups or research appointments.
For more information or to schedule your visit outside of our open hours, please email blackmemorylab@dontshootpdx.org
Portland in Black: Free Archiving Workshop with Don't Shoot Portland!
Portland in Black: Documenting Our History in the City of Roses
Saturday, August 22 from 10am-12pm at Bank of Expensify
Join Don’t Shoot Portland and the Portland City Archives for our monthly event in a series focused on building community learning archival skills. Write identifying information for your family photos and keepsakes, create a file plan for your digital collections, or organize and scan your keepsakes.
Portland in Black is a chance to work on personal archiving projects and receive guidance from experienced memory workers and professional archivists. Attendees will also have the opportunity to view the work of Hypatia Sorunke’s ‘A Women’s Basketball Fashion Archive’, a collaborative exhibit with Liberated Archives for Black Lives powered by Don’t Shoot Portland.
Guided tours and appointments to A Women's Basketball Fashion Archive can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com.
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Don’t Shoot Portland is an arts and education organization that promotes social justice and civic participation. Our mission is to harness the power of creative expression to inspire, educate, and mobilize communities towards equity, justice, and transformative social impact. The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX is an extension of this programming, centering art as activism to showcase underrepresented artists. @dontshootpdx @theblackgallerypdx
A Women's Basketball Fashion Archive at Expensify
Art & education nonprofit Don't Shoot Portlands' latest Liberated Archives exhibition launches the first ever archive of women’s basketball fashion featured by The Fitted W, a published work by Hypatia Sorunke. A Women’s Basketball Fashion Archive is the first exhibition of the photobook that showcases Sorunkes' travels from coast to coast documenting 50+ WNBA games in 12 different cities during the historic 2024 Season.
This is the largest fine arts project undertaken to archive the professional women’s basketball space. It is a direct and unique response to fill the narrative gaps in the history of women’s sports. While focusing on mapping black queer migration patterns, Sorunke uncovered the lack of documentation around the transitive and contemporary industry of professional women’s basketball. Working with a point and shoot film camera, an instant polaroid, and their LGBTQIA+ community, Sorunke worked to capture the importance of safeguarding women’s sports as a space where Black, Queer, and Transgendered individuals can exist and dream in. The future success of women’s sports relies on the ability to build a community where everyone can be themselves and see themselves in it, marking the project as a tribute to understanding the necessity and impact of queered relational aesthetics in innovating self-expression in the global cultural landscape of women’s sports.
A Womens’ Basketball Fashion Archive
On view at at Expensify from June 12 - August 28, 2026
Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com for guided tours and visits outside of public event hours.
Maroon Portals
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Visits to The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Group and class visits are encouraged.
Photo credit: Ceraun the DivaNun
The Care Machine | Photo Credit: Elon Schoenholz
Quiet Adjustments & Loud Refusals | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Head to Freedom | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
A Women's Basketball Fashion Archive at Expensify
Art & education nonprofit Don't Shoot Portlands' latest Liberated Archives exhibition launches the first ever archive of women’s basketball fashion featured by The Fitted W, a published work by Hypatia Sorunke. A Women’s Basketball Fashion Archive is the first exhibition of the photobook that showcases Sorunkes' travels from coast to coast documenting 50+ WNBA games in 12 different cities during the historic 2024 Season.
This is the largest fine arts project undertaken to archive the professional women’s basketball space. It is a direct and unique response to fill the narrative gaps in the history of women’s sports. While focusing on mapping black queer migration patterns, Sorunke uncovered the lack of documentation around the transitive and contemporary industry of professional women’s basketball. Working with a point and shoot film camera, an instant polaroid, and their LGBTQIA+ community, Sorunke worked to capture the importance of safeguarding women’s sports as a space where Black, Queer, and Transgendered individuals can exist and dream in. The future success of women’s sports relies on the ability to build a community where everyone can be themselves and see themselves in it, marking the project as a tribute to understanding the necessity and impact of queered relational aesthetics in innovating self-expression in the global cultural landscape of women’s sports.
A Womens’ Basketball Fashion Archive
On view at at Expensify from June 12 - August 28, 2026
Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com for guided tours and visits outside of public event hours.
Maroon Portals
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Visits to The BLACK Gallery powered by DSPDX can be made by emailing info@theblackgallerypdx.com Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 5pm. Group and class visits are encouraged.
Photo credit: Ceraun the DivaNun
The Care Machine | Photo Credit: Elon Schoenholz
Quiet Adjustments & Loud Refusals | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Head to Freedom | Photo Credit: Studio of Autumn Breon
Maroon Portals in Conversation with Autumn Breon
Autumn Breon Maroon Portals
August 8 - October 4, 2026
Maroon Portals brings together sculpture, textile, paintings, and participatory works that imagine freedom as a practice of invention. Rooted in histories of Black self-determination and speculative world-building, the exhibition invites viewers to move through portals where past, present, and future collapse into one another, revealing new possibilities for liberation.
The exhibition is grounded in the foundation of Breon's artistic praxis: the Combahee River Collective's assertion that “If Black women were free, everyone would be free.” Her multidisciplinary practice expands the mythology of Esoterica, a speculative planet powered by care and abundant creativity, while exploring spatiotemporal glitches that disrupt linear history and expose overlooked pathways to freedom. Throughout the exhibition, care functions as infrastructure, refusal is a creative technology, and portals emerge through acts of adornment, memory, participation, and collective imagination.
Join us for a conversation with Autumn Breon and The BLACK Gallery directors on August 8, 2026 from 4 to 6pm at 916 NW Flanders Street Portland, OR 97209. Registration is based on a sliding scale donation, please consider supporting our nonprofit in making this programming possible. Lovingly prepare yourself for this experience. Wear pink + bring pink.
Open Hours at the Black Cultural Library
Our reference library holds an expansive collection of rare and limited literary works from civil rights advocates, artists and scholars.
The Black Cultural Library will host open hours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, but is also available for groups or research appointments.
For more information or to schedule your visit outside of our open hours, please email blackmemorylab@dontshootpdx.org
A Women's Basketball Fashion Archive at Expensify
Art & education nonprofit Don't Shoot Portlands' latest Liberated Archives exhibition launches the first ever archive of women’s basketball fashion featured by The Fitted W, a published work by Hypatia Sorunke. A Women’s Basketball Fashion Archive is the first exhibition of the photobook that showcases Sorunkes' travels from coast to coast documenting 50+ WNBA games in 12 different cities during the historic 2024 Season.
This is the largest fine arts project undertaken to archive the professional women’s basketball space. It is a direct and unique response to fill the narrative gaps in the history of women’s sports. While focusing on mapping black queer migration patterns, Sorunke uncovered the lack of documentation around the transitive and contemporary industry of professional women’s basketball. Working with a point and shoot film camera, an instant polaroid, and their LGBTQIA+ community, Sorunke worked to capture the importance of safeguarding women’s sports as a space where Black, Queer, and Transgendered individuals can exist and dream in. The future success of women’s sports relies on the ability to build a community where everyone can be themselves and see themselves in it, marking the project as a tribute to understanding the necessity and impact of queered relational aesthetics in innovating self-expression in the global cultural landscape of women’s sports.
A Womens’ Basketball Fashion Archive
On view at at Expensify from June 12 - August 28, 2026
Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com for guided tours and visits outside of public event hours.
A Women's Basketball Fashion Archive at Expensify
Art & education nonprofit Don't Shoot Portlands' latest Liberated Archives exhibition launches the first ever archive of women’s basketball fashion featured by The Fitted W, a published work by Hypatia Sorunke. A Women’s Basketball Fashion Archive is the first exhibition of the photobook that showcases Sorunkes' travels from coast to coast documenting 50+ WNBA games in 12 different cities during the historic 2024 Season.
This is the largest fine arts project undertaken to archive the professional women’s basketball space. It is a direct and unique response to fill the narrative gaps in the history of women’s sports. While focusing on mapping black queer migration patterns, Sorunke uncovered the lack of documentation around the transitive and contemporary industry of professional women’s basketball. Working with a point and shoot film camera, an instant polaroid, and their LGBTQIA+ community, Sorunke worked to capture the importance of safeguarding women’s sports as a space where Black, Queer, and Transgendered individuals can exist and dream in. The future success of women’s sports relies on the ability to build a community where everyone can be themselves and see themselves in it, marking the project as a tribute to understanding the necessity and impact of queered relational aesthetics in innovating self-expression in the global cultural landscape of women’s sports.
A Womens’ Basketball Fashion Archive
On view at at Expensify from June 12 - August 28, 2026
Please email info@theblackgallerypdx.com for guided tours and visits outside of public event hours.
Open Hours at the Black Cultural Library
Our reference library holds an expansive collection of rare and limited literary works from civil rights advocates, artists and scholars.
The Black Cultural Library will host open hours on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month, but is also available for groups or research appointments.
For more information or to schedule your visit outside of our open hours, please email blackmemorylab@dontshootpdx.org
