Photo by Mika Martinez

Graffiti As Resistance
at the black gallery powered by dspdx

August 7 to September 4

Graffiti As Resistance is a photographic exhibition featuring the plywood mural panels from the Apple Store in downtown Portland. Previously shown at PCC in December 2024, the panels became a space for memorializing lives lost to police brutality, racial discrimination and state violence. This exhibit centers those most impacted while amplifying ongoing calls for racial justice from past and present.

Photographs of the murals and accompanying research, including a de-stall process report from conservator Samantha Springer, will also be on display. 

The Apple store panels began as a mural by local artist Emma Berger before growing to hold countless artistic responses that included calls to action from community members participating in the 2020 uprising and memorials to many of the Black lives that have been lost in Portland. 

Artists known:

Emma Berger / @flatrabbitstudio

Atliöúx Tchèn / @atliouxart

Damon Smyth / @damonsmythart

Sagan Newham / @sagangenesis

Jenn Thompson / @yslives

Salomee Souag / @_________solace

Valerie Wrede

Did you contribute to these murals in any way? If so, your contribution to what became a community art project is historic and essential to the catalogue. Did you leave notes, signs, make stickers, wheat paste, or add writing to the walls? Even if you brought flowers and candles, you were apart of this social response. Please consider filling out our encrypted form here.

Photo by Mika Martinez

Photo by Mika Martinez