Portland Monuments Project: Future

The City of Portland is engaged in a national dialogue about public art, history, monuments, and memorials. With support from the Mellon Foundation, the Portland Monuments Project is a multi-year project with the goal of deciding on the future of seven monuments that were damaged, toppled, or removed following demonstrations in Portland in 2020-2021. Portland Monuments Project aims to foster public dialogue to reimagine and transform the purpose of monuments and memorials in Portland. This episode is part three, the final installment of a three-part series as part of the Portland Monuments Project. This week we explore the city’s potential futures; episode one looked to the past, and episode two explored the present. Literary Arts is involved in this project because storytelling is at the heart of our mission, and monuments tell a story about who we were, who we are, what we value, and who we aspire to be. They tell stories about different communities and the stories they tell are dynamic, in so much as our community is changing, time is passing, and the context for these fixed objects and changes around them. In this episode, we’ll think about the monuments we need. We’ll hear from Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor, whose voice you might recognize as the other co-host of this show. We have a conversation with Portland writers Mitchell S. Jackson and Renée Watson about who they think should be honored with a monument in Portland. And we’ll hear from the people of Portland about the monuments they want to see and the stories they want to be told about this city, where we’ve been, and where it’s going. Our guide for today’s episode is Archive Project editor and producer, Matthew Workman.