Bend’s High Desert Museum to receive $238K from feds to create new learning hub as part of expansion plans

WASHINGTON (KTVZ) -- Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley announced Tuesday a federal investment totaling nearly $750,000 for Bend's High Desert Museum, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and the Portland Art Museum. 

“These iconic Oregon museums have been sharing our local history, culture and science for decades to the benefit of Oregonians and visitors alike,” Wyden said. “They are creating programming that people from around the world come to experience while spending money throughout Oregon. Education, entertainment and economic impact is a winning trifecta for Oregonians.”

“Oregon’s museums help us connect to one another and expand our understanding of the world around us,” said Merkley. “These projects at the High Desert Museum, OMSI, and the Portland Art Museum will help to provide high quality education and cultural experiences for students, families, and visitors.” 

The High Desert Museum in Bend will use its $238,840 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)  to create a learning hub to accommodate educational programs for K-12 students, teachers, families and community groups that will evoke new understandings of the region, build community connections, and inspire creativity.  

“Our community continues to grow, and the Museum is planning an expansion to grow alongside it,” said High Desert Museum Executive Director Dana Whitelaw. “The new learning center will allow for new and expanded innovative programming, as well as provide vital additional space for school year and summer programs. We’re so grateful to the Institute for Museum and Library Services for this incredible opportunity and to Oregon’s senators for supporting the important work of the High Desert Museum.”

OMSI in Portland will use its $249,469 to partner with Project LEDO, a Portland-based community organization that promotes equity in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM), to improve the museum's labs and learning spaces for youth educational programming.

"OMSI is incredibly grateful for this award from IMLS, whose ongoing support of museums has been instrumental in helping advance educational opportunities,” said Alexis Baghdadi, Director of Campus and Museum Engagement. “This grant will empower our educators to better reach and serve diverse communities, while also centering those communities in shaping our STEAM experiences, a collaboration process OMSI values and finds key to learners' success." 

The Portland Art Museum will use its $250,000 to create a retrospective exhibition of the modernist painter and printmaker Yoshida Chizuko, highlighting the artist's contributions as an advocate for women artists in the 1950s and 1960s.

"For some time, we have been overdue for an exploration of the creative, luminous work of Yoshida Chizuko across the long arc of her six-decade career. I am excited for people to be introduced to this important twentieth-century artist and learn her story, which invites us to think more broadly about the history of international printmaking, modern art, and the challenges of pursuing a career as a woman artist in the 1950s and 1960s,” said Jeannie Kenmotsu, Ph.D., the Portland Art Museum’s Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art. “We are grateful for the support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides crucial backing for groundbreaking research and programs that open new doors to our understanding of art and culture.”