AWARDS

The Vanport Mosaic was awarded the Oregon Heritage Excellence Award, the Spirit of Portland Award by City Commissioner Nick Fish, and the Columbia Slough Watershed Council’s Achievement Award. 

In 2022  the National Trust for Historic Preservation recognized Vanport Mosaic as one of 80 organizations nationwide using historical places as catalysts for a more just and equitable society, showcasing the multi-layered intersections of underrepresented communities of people.

In 2023, the American Association for State and Local History selected Vanport Mosaic as a Award of Excellence winner by the Leadership in History awards committee - the nation’s most prestigious competition for recognition of achievement in state and local history.

For a taste of the Vanport Mosaic Festival and its impact, we invite you to watch the short documentaries:
History from the Bottom Up: The Making of The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2016
Legacy of A Forgotten City - The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017
Call For Memory Activism: The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2018

PROGRAM (In Progress! Check back often for additional events and info/tickets)

Saturday, May 18

• 11:00 AM - 1:30 PM: Annual Reunion for Vanport Residents, Flood Survivors & Descendants
  A luncheon honoring former Vanport residents, flood survivors, and their descendants. By invitation only.

Sunday, May 19

• 10:30 AM - 3:30 PM: All Power to The People: Black Panther Party Legacy Tour of Albina
  A walking tour with Kent Ford, co-founder of Portland's chapter of the Black Panther Party, exploring memories of revolutionary activism in NE Portland
  

• 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting On Two Fronts
  Historic Alberta House 5131 NE 23rd Ave, Portland, OR 97211
  Screening of a new documentary film directed by Dru Holley that combines a multitude of diverse perspectives to examine the profound and often-contradictory roles played in American history by the often forgotten black regiments who served in some of America’s earliest wars and how they fought on two very different sets of front lines -- military conflicts abroad and civil rights struggles at home. Followed by a Q&A with director Dru Holley 

Friday, May 24

• 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM: The Music of Miracle City

• Historic Alberta House 5131 NE 23rd Ave, Portland, OR 97211
  Public historian and ethnomusicologist Kelly Bosworth shared her findings from years of archival exploration on the music of Vanport and the nearby Kaiser shipyards.  With music performance by Marilyn Keller

Saturday, May 25

• 7:00 PM: Precipice: Precipice: re-membering, forgetting and claiming home as a Black woman in this white utopia
  a new solo play conceived and performed by Damaris Webb; directed by Olivia Mathews; written by Chris Gonzales
  - Historic Alberta House 5131 NE 23rd Ave, Portland, OR 97211
  Combining direct experience through overnight camping in different parts of the state, with the relative safety in a NE Portland multigenerational home, Precipice pushes against the boundaries of memory, media reports, geological truths, legacy, DNA reports, and the value of listening to the land. Who owns your idea of belonging? What is the legacy of the place you call home? As far as you can tell, is everyone free?

Sunday, May 26

• 2:00 PM: Precipice: Re-membering, Forgetting, and Claiming Home (Repeat Performance)
  - Historic Alberta House 5131 NE 23rd Ave, Portland, OR 97211

Wednesday, May 29

• Morning (During City Council Meeting): City of Portland’s  Proclamation for a Vanport Day of Remembrance
  Portland City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Ave, Portland, OR 97204
  Join Vanport survivors and descendants, and Vanport Mosaic memory activists, as we commemorate the anniversary of the Memorial Day flood that destroyed Vanport in 1948, and Mayor Ted Wheeler declares May 30 Vanport Day of Remembrance.  

Thursday, May 30

• 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM: Lost City Living Memories: Vanport Through The Voices of Its Residents
  Historic Alberta House 5131 NE 23rd Ave, Portland, OR 97211
  Screening of short oral history documentaries from the Vanport Mosaic collection: Lost City, Living Memory: Vanport Through the Voices of Its Residents, followed by a facilitated dialogue connecting. With special guests from the Vanport Community

Saturday, June 1

• 12:00 PM - 4:00 PM: DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
  Delta Park Expo Center/Assembly Center
  Pop-up exhibits, tours, performances, talks, and activities on the Indigenous land where Vanport once stood and Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated.
  

Exhibits Throughout the Festival
Historic Alberta House 5131 NE 23rd Ave, Portland, OR 97211
Gallery Hours: FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC/GALLERY HOURS: 4-6 PM FRI 19TH - SUN 21ST; CLOSED MON 22ND - WED 24TH; 4-6 PM THURS 25TH - FRI 26TH; CLOSED SAT 27TH; 1-8 PM SUN 28TH

Artwork by Henk Pander: “The Climate Refugees of Vanport” and “The Artist as Eyewitness to History”
This “art giant” passed away on April 7th, 2023, but his legacy continues through his artwork. The Vanport Mosaic had the honor to collaborate with Henk Pander in the past few years and to present some of his history paintings as part of our memory activism. We are grateful to Henk and his family for entrusting us with the watercolors from the Vanport series and the large-scale paintings Henk created in response to 2020's racial justice protests. 

Beyond Vanport: Remembering Native North Portland/artwork by Peggy Ball-Morrill

Klamath/Modoc artist Peggy Ball-Morrill’s paintings portray a community nearly invisible in popular culture where representations of native people are often limited to westerns or cartoons. The paintings remember a close-knit native community at a time when federal termination and relocation policies threatened Native survival. Peggy passed away in August of 2015.

Vanport: The Surge of Social Change

A historical photo exhibit documenting the life, destruction, and aftermath of the largest WWII shipbuilding community in the U.S., co-curated by Vanport Mosaic and Oregon Black Pioneers.