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About The Southwest Portland Post. (Portland, Oregon) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 2008)
8 • The Southwest Portland Post June 2008 FEatuRES Artist-in-residence Linda K. Johnson coordinates art projects in South Waterfront By Lee Perlman The Southwest Portland Post In the South Waterfront, across from the looming John Ross condominium tower, there is a two-square block ex- panse of lawn. Someday, it will be a community park that serves the grow- ing area in a variety of ways. For now the lawn, suitable for dog walking and other informal outdoor activities, is a place-maker for what is to come. On the other side of the John Ross is the lair of another place-maker: Artist in residence Linda K. Johnson. Since last August, she is there to provide art projects that promote and celebrate the new area, with the par- ticipation of its new residents and the public at large. Her chief function has been to com- mission a new work by an artist each month. The artists have been painters, sculptors, a dancer, a writer and a pho- tographer with widely different styles, but all have had this in common: they are about the South Waterfront, they are displayed or performed there, they are free to the general public, and they in- volve some sort of public participation. Of this last Johnson told the Post, “There are some artists who just like to sit in their studio and paint – that’s great, but it’s not appropriate here.” Photographer Christopher Rauschen- berg took pictures of people and things in the district, then had an exhibition there of his work. Dancer Tahni Holt staged performances in three different places, at and above ground level, and invited the public to view them from different places as well. Dancer Bill Will is scheduled to perform a recital on July 19. On August 2nd, 10 choreographers and theater companies will give 10 short performances simultaneously at 10 dif- ferent locations in the district, with the performers rotating their performance spaces and the audience free to do so as well. Funding for the project comes from “the principal developers of the district,” as Johnson put it, but especially Williams and Dame and the Gerding-Edlen Com- pany. The idea was Johnson’s. Long one of Portland’s most respect- ed dancers, choreographers and per- formance artists, she has taken special interest in the city’s communities and geographic locations. One year, at the downtown Artquake festival, she and fellow performers spent all day con- structing and re-constructing a metal structure that mimicked the changing face of downtown. A later work, “The View From Here,” examined the much-discussed but lit- tle-understood Urban Growth Bound- ary, the official dividing line between urban and rural development; for that work, Johnson personally toured the boundary. Linda K. Johnson at South Waterfront Park. (Post photo by Lee Perlman) She was especially intrigued by the possibilities of the South Waterfront. “Here we’ve reconstituted a neighbor- hood that for years was an uninhab- itable brown field,” she said. “It’s a chance for everyone in the city to re- draw their internal maps.” She wrote an unsolicited proposal for the project to Homer Williams and Mark Edlen – who agreed to fund the project. It is not a great surprise. Williams, in particular, has always believed strongly in the components other than housing that create a true community. In the Pearl he contributed to what eventually became Jameson Square, and to art projects to utilize it. To those who suggested that the new open spaces would become problem hangouts for the homeless he said, “We can’t control who will come here, but if we program it properly we can have a lot of control over what happens here.” Johnson says that the funds were given freely, with no attempt to direct or interfere with her artistic plans. Once the money was approved, she “drew on my roots and connective tissue” to recruit participating artists. Each of the performances has brought 200 to 300 people into the area, and engaged 40 to 50 immediate residents. Johnson herself is easy to spot dur- ing the day. As a work uniform she has adopted a red jump suit reminiscent of the construction workers still em- ployed in building the area. Her last performance, under the contract, will be something connected to the annual Time Based Art festival in September. 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