A powerful blending of technology, art, ritual and historical preservation that reconnects Block 14 of the Lone Fir Cemetery and excavates the lost history of the Chinese community in Portland’s early days.
A community healing hub for the housed and unhoused Black community in the Albina neighborhood that reuses retired TriMet MAX cars.
A series of Indigenous marketplaces, including one hosted at Metro’s Blue Lake Park.
Opportunities for intergenerational connection through collaborative learning, storytelling, dance and theatre.
These are few of the projects that were selected to receive support from Metro’s eighth Community Placemaking grant cycle. The 10 grant-funded efforts, totaling $209,800, will take place across the Metro region in places such as Forest Grove, Cornelius, Oregon City, Gresham, Fairview and various locations in Portland. 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. 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.
Program objectives
- Placemaking: People’s connections to each other and to places they care about are strengthened.
- Equity: People of color and members of marginalized communities have power and resources to influence their neighborhoods and communities.
- Partnerships: People’s efforts are maximized because they work in partnership with each other and with Metro.
- Leadership: People participate in projects and decisions that affect them.
Recipients
Get email updates on placemaking projects and grant cycle news
Subscribe
Next cycle
Metro will begin accepting applications for the 2025 cycle of grants in August 2024.
Learn how to apply
Metro received 88 applications requesting more than $1.8 million in funding. An advisory group that includes 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 agreement on 10 recommended on November 17, 2023.
The following grants, listed in alphabetical order by project name, 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 AfroFuturism Oasis – AfroVillage PDX, $21,000 (North Portland)
This grant supports the first year of engagement and visioning, following the installment of a few retired TriMet MAX cars, to establish The AfroFuturism Oasis – a healing hub in the Albina neighborhood that integrates nature, culture, art and technology to create a sanctuary for Black and BIPOC communities to rest, collaborate, innovate and access pathways to economic empowerment. The Albina neighborhood site will house the AfroVillage office, an art gallery, hygiene and food services, a community garden, green tech interventions and classrooms. Engagement activities will include creating tactical interventions, hosting conversations and a variety of culturally specific events, as they transform vacant land into a place reflecting the cultural and historical identity of the area, while strengthening BIPOC sense of community and safety.
Ballet Folklorico: Reconnecting to cultural heritage and traditions – Centro Cultural Del Condado De Washington, $25,000 (Cornelius, Forest Grove and locations in Washington County)
This program grew out of recognition that seniors increasingly living in isolation, and youth need intergenerational teachings to gain self-confidence and leadership skills. This grant supports elder and youth dance cohorts led by local, culturally specific artists through a lens of identity, accessibility and cultural preservation. Ballet Folklorico honors and promotes Mexican culture, heritage and identity. Two youth cohorts focus on intergenerational artistic and cultural teachings, self-confidence and leadership development. The elder cohort creates space for physical and mental wellness, community building and self-expression.
The Community at Play – PassinArt Theatre Company, $21,000 (Albina neighborhood, North and Downtown Portland)
This grant will support intergenerational programming to build community, increase family learning opportunities and develop new and younger audiences for theatre. It includes theatre programming to support the community hub and literacy efforts at the Albina Arts Center, nine intergenerational play readings with author discussions and family nights. Young people will engage in learning and participate in civic conversations. This programming will contribute to the reclamation of the historic Albina neighborhood and help address historic ills of disinvestment and displacement by anchoring what is the essence of any demographic group – its arts and culture.
Community Events for Black Queer People – Black and Beyond the Binary Collective, $21,000 (Southeast Portland)
This grant will support a series of events for Black-African transgender, queer, nonbinary, two-spirit, intersex community in spring and summer with the goals of deepening interconnectedness, celebrating culture(s) together and building a shared safe space for self-expression and joy. The community can be centered and feel safe in the face of persistent transphobia, homophobia, anti-Blackness, ableism, ageism and other forms of oppression. 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.
Conversations from the Heart - Black Education Achievement Movement, $20,500 (North Portland)
This grant will support cultural arts and storytelling workshops with Black middle and high school students who will create a public exhibit at an educational hub in the Albina neighborhood. The exhibit will be shared during a block party that brings neighbors, families and community leaders together in the street for conversation and celebration. These students identified a critical need to honor and showcase stories of their modern-day Black heroes. This program gives voice to this rising generation — who they admire and who defines their culture. The grant includes youth stipends to participate in the 8-week summer program as featured student artists, activists and culture-makers.
Dia de los Muertos, A Celebration of Life – El Programa Hispano Catolico, $25,000 (Gresham and East Multnomah County)
This grant will support a multi-phase Dia de los Muertos celebration. Six storytelling circles will capture familial memories with groups that include youth, seniors, survivors of domestic/sexual abuse and people experiencing housing instability. A mural designed by a local Latine artist will be based on the storytelling circle sessions and the community will paint the mural. It will culminate in a 2-day festival with programming to engage the Latine community including an Indigenous dance workshop and the creation of altars to cherish the life of those who have passed.
The Ethiopian Afterschool Art and Leadership Program – Oregon Ethiopian Community Organization, $13,300 (East Portland and locations around the region)
This grant supports Ethiopian and Ethiopian American students’ connection to their heritage through visual art, music and time spent in community. Students will receive instruction on traditional and contemporary Ethiopian visual arts and develop traveling murals that will be displayed across the metropolitan area. Students will gain coaching and leadership skill development for public speaking as they talk about their work and make public presentations at different locations. The celebrations will reinforce community identity and connection for the young people and their families. The program grew out of the recognition that Ethiopian and Ethiopian Americans are dispersed throughout the region resulting in sense of isolation and lack of public safety, which was exacerbated due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indigenous placemaking – Portland Indigenous Marketplace, $21,000 (Oregon City, Portland, Blue Lake Park in Fairview)
Indigenous and Black artists and entrepreneurs lack intentional and respectful spaces to come together and vend. Representation and positive experiences are essential to the healing of these communities in Oregon. Marketplace events have become part of better experiences for community members. This grant will support the Indigenous marketplace events, staff and the arts and culture programming in Portland, Fairview and – for the first time – an Indigenous marketplace in Oregon City. The grant will also fund Art in the Park events at Blue Lake Park in Fairview, educational workshops for the more than one hundred Indigenous vendors, three art and culture workshops open to the public and a vendor picnic in Oregon City.
One Willamette: Network learning and celebration ceremony – Nesika Wilamut, $21,000 (Downtown Portland)
Decades of pollution contaminated the Willamette River, limiting cultural traditions such as fishing, harvesting and ceremony. Despite cleanup efforts, the river’s health remains compromised. More education, relationship-building and honoring of Indigenous knowledge and practices is needed to restore the central waterway. This Indigenous-led effort will uplift cultural traditions and foster an equitable river health movement by centering impacted communities, strengthening relationships, building a shareable curriculum and reconnecting people to the lower Willamette River. The grant will support an event that plants the seeds for systemic change. Through collaborative learning, trust will be rebuilt between communities of color and environmental groups working towards a shared goal of river restoration.
Serenading the Departed – Artist Horatio Law and MediaRites Production, $21,000 (Downtown and Southeast Portland/Lone Fir Cemetery)
Old-Town/Chinatown embodies many of the issues facing our deeply divided society today. The recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes 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. This grant will support a creative project to reconnect Block 14 in Lone Fir Cemetery with Chinatown during the Ching Ming Festival. 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 day. Performances of Chinese instrumentalists, Cantonese opera and storytellers will take place in Chinatown and be broadcast to Block 14 via media technology as virtual offerings to honor the deceased. Afterwards, the public can see the performances anytime in augmented reality (AR) through their mobile device using QR code embedded in the cemetery. The virtual performers will appear to be standing on the cemetery ground.