By Kris McDowell
In its eighth cycle, Metro’s Community Placemaking program has awarded 10 community-led creative projects funds totaling $209,800. The program continues to support equity-centered arts and culture-based efforts that strengthen community and foster connections to different neighborhoods across the greater Portland region. Three of the projects will host activities at Metro properties—Blue Lake Park, Lone Fir Cemetery and the Brunish Theatre.
The Community Placemaking program asks community groups to define their own challenges and place-based opportunities. The grants support innovative, community-driven solutions that advance racial equity, address regionally significant, complex issues and build resilience through the transformation and activation of public spaces. Placemaking helps create spaces that encourage feelings of belonging and safety, especially when people honor art and culture, filling the gaps that infrastructure cannot address.
Metro received 88 applications requesting more than $1.8 million in funding. An advisory group that included Metro Councilors and six community members who work at the intersection of arts and social justice in the greater Portland region reviewed the applications in two rounds, deliberated and reached an agreement on the 10 projects recommended to receive grants. The grants will be led by and benefit Black, Indigenous, Latine, Chinese and Ethiopian communities; youth; families; entrepreneurs; the Black and African transgender, queer, nonbinary, two-spirit, intersex community; and people experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity.
The grants, available for projects ranging from $5,000 to $25,000, do not require organizations to provide matching funds. Grant-funded activities are expected to take place March-June. Two of the grants were awarded to SE Portland organizations—Black and Beyond the Binary Collective and artist Horatio Law/MediaRites Production.
The $21,000 grant to Black and Beyond the Binary Collective will support a series of events for Black-African transgender, queer, nonbinary, two-spirit, intersex community in the spring and summer with the goals of deepening interconnectedness, celebrating culture(s) together and building a shared space for self-expression and joy. The events will allow the community to be centered and feel safe in the face of persistent transphobia, homophobia, anti-Blackness, ableism, ageism and other forms of oppression. Event attendees will feel supported and less alone, with a community they can count on and skills they can build to support themselves and each other.
Artist Horatio Law and MediaRites Production will receive $21,000 to support the “Serenading the Departed” project downtown and in SE Portland at Lone Fir Cemetery. The project seeks to reconnect Block 14 in Lone Fir Cemetery with downtown’s Chinatown during the Ching Ming Festival. Old Town/Chinatown embodies many of the issues facing today’s deeply divided society, including the recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes that evoke previous efforts to expel Chinese immigrants from the country. The deterioration of Old Town and the emptying out of Chinese businesses, residents and aging elders all contribute to the fast disappearance of Chinese American history and culture in Portland. Block 14 is a forgotten corner of the Lone Fir Cemetery that had served as temporary, segregated gravesites for members of the Chinese community during Portland’s early days.
Performances of Chinese instrumentalists, Cantonese opera and storytellers will take place in Chinatown and be broadcast to Block 14 via media technology as a virtual offering to honor the deceased. Afterwards, the public can see the performances anytime in augmented reality (AR) through their mobile device using a QR code embedded in the cemetery. The performance will be shot so that the virtual performers will appear to be standing on the cemetery ground.
A full list of grantees and information about applying available at . Metro will begin accepting applications for the 2025 cycle of grants in August 2024.