Darren O’Donnell is an artist, writer, actor, and city planner. He is the director and founder of Mammalian Diving Reflex, and the author of Social Acupuncture. O’Donnell is the Artistic and Research Director of Mammalian Diving Reflex, a "research-art atelier" that produces performances, community-based events, and theoretical texts. The organization’s programs work to dissolve boundaries between art and life in an attempt to create an aesthetic of civic engagement.
Lauren Moran is an artist originally from Connecticut, currently living in Portland, Oregon. Through conversation, printmaking, publication, curation, teaching and interdisciplinary projects she works to make significant connections and experiment with the systems we are all embedded in. Her work seeks to create situations of openness, questioning and non-hierarchical learning. She was previously living and working in Tucson, Arizona where she helped establish the Tucson Community Print Shop, curated exhibitions and events at Tiny Town Gallery, taught art, and developed a gallery/work-training program through ArtWorks at the University of Arizona.
The IPRC’s Mission is to facilitate creative expression, identity, and community by providing individual access to tools and resources for creating independently published media and artwork. Since its inception in 1998 the center has been dedicated to encouraging the growth of a visual and literary publishing community by offering a space to gather and exchange information and ideas, as well as to produce work.
Newspace Center for Photography is a multidimensional photography resource center and community hub for students, working artists, professional photographers, educators, and photo-enthusiasts of all types.
Derek Hamm is a designer, educator, and socially-engaged artist. He was born and currently lives in rural Kansas where he creates cultural spaces for others to share in his search to understand what it means to be a part of a place and a community.
Ariana Jacob makes artwork that uses conversation as medium and as a subjective research method. Her work explores experiences of interdependence and disconnection, questions her own idealistic beliefs, and investigates how people make culture and culture makes people. She received her MFA in Art & Social Practice from Portland State University. Her work has been included in the NW Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum, Disjecta’s Portland 2012 Biennial, The Open Engagement Conference and the Discourse and Discord Symposium at the Walker Art Center.
Roz Crews is an artist living in Portland, OR (b. Gainesville, FL). She designs and implements socially-engaged art and curatorial projects that facilitate relationships, collaboration and dialogue. Roz is the 2015 - 2017 artist-in-residence at Portland State University’s University Housing and Residence Life department where she is currently working on a suite of projects inspired by the FYE-FRINQ program at PSU.
Important historical, cultural, and ontological questions about immigration, migration, and belonging (IMB) frame the yearlong discussions in the Globalization First-Year Experience Freshman Inquiry course taught by Oscar Fernandez. The topics that arise from class discussion and readings inform formal academic research assignments and community-based learning projects and actions throughout the year.
Emma Colburn plays with the space between bodies, geography, and law to disrupt narratives of safety and belonging. Her creative practice is guided by a curiosity towards the relationship between the self (ego) and space (geo) as negotiated in specific moments of time. She uses processes of painting, collage, performative geographic research, collaborations, and personal migration to investigate systems that structure micro and macro cosmic realities.
Port City’s Project Grow provides a space for artists to explore personal expression through an array of artistic mediums, as well as gain skill and experience working on a chemical-free farm with an emphasis on sustainability. ProjectGrow aims to create a shared art experience by connecting individuals with other artists in the community and in the greater art world. Trips to galleries, museums, and other art studios provide inspiration and foster engagement and collaboration with fellow artists in the community.
Anke Schüttler is a multidisciplinary visual artist specializing in photography. She likes to foster social interactions by asking questions and challenging existing situations with humorous responses. Collaboration and collective thinking are important to her practice. Originally from Germany, she has lived in the Netherlands, UK, France and now the US.
Adam Carlin is a first year in the PSU Social Practice program and is currently the Vsiting Curator at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina. In his practice he investigates the needs of a community and reconciles, changes, or challenges these needs through social engagement. In addition, Carlin also re-contextualizes contemporary technologies as tools for artist working in the public sphere.
Arianna Warner is a current Art and Social Practice MFA candidate at PSU. Since being diagnosed with a chronic pain illness in 2007, Warner began studying art as a form of survival and as a means of coping; this, in turn, has heavily influenced her work.
Roya Amirsoleymani (M.A.) oversees community engagement, education, and public programs for the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) and teaches in PSU’s Art & Social Practice Program. She is most inspired by the inquiries and possibilities that arise when artists, audiences, activists, and academics come together to critically and collaboratively explore our current cultural moment.
Harrell Fletcher received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and his MFA from California College of the Arts. He studied organic farming at UCSC which impacted his work as an artist. He has produced a variety of socially engaged collaborative and interdisciplinary projects since the early 1990s. Fletcher is a Professor of Art and Social Practice at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.
Lisa Jarrett’s work is typically centered upon deconstructing, defragmenting, and, in turn, reconstructing and reassembling her personal experiences as a Black woman in America into a visual expression that asks viewers to consider their own roles in present-day race relations. Jarrett maintains a studio in Portland, Oregon, where she teaches classes in art at Portland State University’s School of Art + Design.
Avalon Kalin is an artist who makes documentary and social art connected to everyday life. He was the co-author of The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal film produced by Matt Mccormick and he studied under the first Social Practice MFA program with Harrell Fletcher at Portland State University. His work has shown in institutions and perhaps more importantly between friends. Recently, he has begun collaborating with his wife Posie Kalin designing installations and products.
Renee Sills is a socially engaged performance artist whose work synthesizes techniques in improvisation and physical conditioning with mindfulness practices, and kinesthetic and emotional awareness. Her work engages questions of purpose, power, politics, and the inherent discomfort and contemporary crises of the human body in a technologically dependent world.
Kimberly Sutherland is a graphic designer exploring systems thinking and the interconnections between us and our natural environment. With a focus on activating a connection to place, her practice utilizes design, art, and education to facilitate experiences that prompt participatory engagement with the spaces we inhabit.
Emily Fitzgerald is a photographer, artist and storyteller. Her work explores the nuance and complexity of personal identity and its relationship to family, community and culture. She uses text, video, photography and socially engaged forms to create work that values collaboration, co-authorship and ethical-representation.
The Hollywood Senior Center strives to promote the health, independence and well-being for adults 55 and older. They provide services and activities for all older adults across a full spectrum of interests and needs.
Amanda Leigh Evans is a socially-engaged artist and educator who works in ceramics and collaborative, interdisciplinary public projects. Her work centers around reforming systems of access, radical hospitality, alternative pedagogies, and conversation between diverse publics. Amanda lives and works in Los Angeles and Portland.
Krysta Williams is a community educator and organizer with a passion for food justice and education. She works with community groups around issues of access and equity through PARCEO— a community-based research center, and as the Community Education & Engagement Manager at Zenger Farm.
Jens Hauge is an educator and labor activist in Vancouver, WA. In his spare time, he thinks up million dollar ideas that he’s willing to share. He grew up Sweatin’ to the Oldies, and still loves to cut a rug.
Born into a family of Eastern European artists, Anya Wild is steeped in Russian folktales, fantasy and science fiction. She develops symbolic narratives through wearables and print media. She holds a BFA from University of Minnesota and will graduate with an MFA from University of Oregon this June.
Natalya Kolosowsky has an extensive background in dance and movement, including experience in physical theater and circus arts. Fascinated by the intersection of art and science, she holds an MFA in Costume Design from the University of Oregon, a BFA in Visual Communication, and a BS in Psychology from the University of Arizona.
Davina Drummond works at the intersection between socially engaged art and art education and at times therapy, purposely blurring the boundaries between these disciplines and in doing so questioning the function of art today. Her current projects include ‘Therapy for New Feminists’ for WOW, Southbank Centre and ‘Take a Joke’ for Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Yara El-Sherbini’s playful practice engages people into debating social and political issues through play and humour. Currently she has her mini golf at the NAE, Nottingham, and she is part of Wastelands at Es Baluard Contemporary Arts, Spain and Rebels, at Musee Bargain, France. Her solo show, The Current Situation will open in Gallery Oldham, UK in May.
Paul West is an arborist, musician, community leader, and long-time resident of Northeast Portland.
Namita Gupta Wiggers is a writer, curator, and educator based in Portland, OR. She is the Director and Co-Founder of Critical Craft Forum. Wiggers teaches in MFA Applied Craft + Design, co-administered by OCAC and PNCA. From 2004-14, she served as the Director and Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, OR.
Daniel Duford is an artist and writer based in Portland, OR. His ceramic and print/illustration work has been exhibited widely at major institutions in the US. His work has been featured in Artweek, The NY Times, The Village Voice, Artforum, Sculpture Magazine and Art Papers. Duford has taught in Portland at PNCA and Reed.
Nicole Gugliotti is an artist based in Olympia, WA. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and Japan. Born in Florida, Gugliotti lived in Tokyo, Japan for 3 years before completing her MFA at the University of Florida in 2014. She is a studio tech at South Puget Sound Community College and is a founding member of the Socially Engaged Craft Collective.
Denise Mullen is the president of the Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, OR. She has held prestigious teaching and administrative positions at institutions including the Alberta College of Art & Design in Calgary and The State University of New York at Purchase. Mullen has been recognized for her bold, visionary steps in rethinking the study of craft.