Bend shares in Oregon Humanities grants

Twenty nonprofit organizations throughout the state, including Bend, will receive $87,870 in grants from Oregon Humanities for public programs in 2013–14 that create conversation about some of Oregon’s most compelling issues, including urban gentrification, intercultural understanding, and the immigrant experience.

The 2013 Public Program Grant recipients, listed by city, are as follows:

Ashland—$5,000 to Chautauqua Poets and Writers for its series, which brings poets and writers to the Rogue Valley for public readings and interviews on Jefferson Public Radio.

Baker City—$3,650 to Trail Tenders for Sinners and Saints: Indelicate Stories of Emigrants in the West, an exhibit that explores concepts of diversity and tolerance in the context of western emigration and settlement.

Bend—$5,000 to Central Oregon Community College Foundation for the Nancy R. Chandler Visiting Scholars Program, which will present three lectures on the subject of fostering a greater understanding of the Muslim experience and a fourth on how culture and politics shape end-of-life care.

Bend—$5,000 to Deschutes Public Library for “A Novel Idea…Read Together,” a month-long celebration of one novel—in 2013, Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child—through music, art, food, dance, lectures, discussion, and reading. Oregon Humanities’ grant funds a free public reading by Ivey at Bend’s Tower Theater.

Coos Bay—$1,000 to the South Coast Folk Society and Coastal Celtic Society to present workshops on Celtic cultural and historical subjects as part of the Celtic Culture Festival.

Grants Pass—$6,000 to Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau for Sharing the Legends of the Oregon Caves, a series of programs and an online exhibit on the history of the Oregon Caves National Monument and the Oregon Caves Chateau.

Hillsboro—$6,000 to the Washington County Museum for Mexico Looks at the Braceros: The Migrant Labor Experience in Mexican Film, a series of film screenings, audience discussions, and presentations by humanities scholars intended to promote understanding of the Bracero Program’s effect on Mexico and of Mexican and US societies’ different views of a shared history.

Joseph—$4,000 to the Wallowa Land Trust for Into the Wallowa Summer Outings and Evening Lectures, a series of half-day outings and lectures led by local humanities and natural history experts.

Medford—$7,500 to United Way of Jackson County for Humanity Walking, a series of six cultural events and companion walks that explore the place of walking in culture, touching on subjects of public space, education, faith, immigration, returning veterans, recovery from addiction, and community-building.

Portland—$2,000 to Artists Repertory Theatre for “A Conversation Between the Lens and the Stage,” an exhibit of Jim Lommasson’s photographs of veterans and a series of events with Lommasson and playwright Andrea Stolowitz, presented in conjunction with the company’s production of Stolowitz’s play Ithaka.

Portland—$2,000 to Caldera for The Geography of We, a series of community conversations about race, identity, and place inspired by the artwork of seventy-five youths, created in response to the Portland Art Museum’s retrospective of the art of Carrie Mae Weems, who grew up in North Portland. The artwork will also be presented in public exhibitions.

Portland—$4,625 to Know Your City for Social Change: Dialogues in Portland’s Changing Neighborhoods, a series of neighborhood presentations aimed at addressing and making accessible the Portland Plan, the city’s twenty-five-year strategic plan.

Portland—$3,400 to Miracle Theatre Group for Dance for a Dollar: Across Borders, a series of post-play conversations with audiences, scholars, and local experts, held in conjunction with the company’s production of Daniel Jquez and Mariana Carreo’s dance/theater piece, Dance for a Dollar.

Portland—$2,500 to Oregon Council of Teachers of English for A Century of Oregon History: Exploring the Untold History of Portland from One Hundred, Fifty, and Twenty-Five Years Ago, a series of panel discussions on racial discrimination, political corruption, and gay rights in Portland history.

Portland—$6,400 to Oregon Cultural Access for Dis/representation: Reading into Disability, a monthly reading group and online discussion blog that will address the cultural and historical contexts that define disability through past and contemporary literature.

Portland—$5,000 to Oregon Historical Society for Oregon Black History Series Public Conversation Project, a series of four public conversations about black history in Oregon held in Portland, Eugene, and Salem.

Portland—$5,000 to Oregon Jewish Museum for Settling In, an exhibit created in partnership with the Immigration Refugee Community Organization that contrasts the Russian Jewish experience of Americanization in Portland with the acculturation experiences of contemporary immigrant populations, focusing on shared issues of movement, resettlement, and the human experience.

Portland—$5,000 to Portland Playhouse for humanities programming to complement the company’s 2013 productions The Left Hand of Darkness and The Ashes.

Portland—$7,200 to Portland State University and Multnomah County Library for A Day in the Life: Memoirs of the Middle East, a book club that aims to dispel common stereotypes of people of the Middle East by exploring the literature of the region.

The Dalles—$2,500 to Columbia Gorge Community College for 2013 Spring Humanities Series: Retrospective, four public lectures by previous speakers from the Series’ past decade on subjects such as cultural understanding and acceptance, social justice, and active, open communication.

Oregon Humanities connects Oregonians to ideas that change lives and transform communities. More information about our programs and publications—which include the Conversation Project, Think & Drink, Humanity in Perspective, Idea Lab Summer Institute, Public Program Grants, and Oregon Humanities magazine—can be found at oregonhumanities.org. Oregon Humanities is an independent, nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a partner of the Oregon Cultural Trust.