Street roots., October 13, 2017, Page 4, Image 4

News
Page 4
Street Roots • October 13-19, 2017
Portland
in Color
May Cat is a facilitator. “I listen, chew information and lay it out, ” she says in
her “Portland in Color” profile. Cat says a challenge o f living in Portland is “the
invalidation o f racism from people who don’t live with racism every day.”
Finding it tough to break into the city’s largely white
creative scene, photographer Celeste Noche is using
her blog to draw attention to local artists o f color
BY EM ILL Y PRADO
S T A F F W R IT E R
ortland is really white. It’s so commonly
heard that it almost doubles as an
unofficial motto for the city. And while 76
percent of residents are white, photographer
Celeste Noche seeks to dispel the myth that
communities of color don’t
exist. Her new photo
documentary, “Portland in
Color,” refocuses the lens on
the stories and experiences of
To read Celeste Noche’s
creatives of color living in the
“Portland in Color” profiles
City of Roses.
and for information about
P
READ THE BLOG
“Portland in Color” is hosted
on Noche’s professional blog.
P H O T O S B Y CELESTE N O C H E
Lydia Grijalva is a social and community artist. “I ’m inspired by my community, ” Grijalva says in
“Portland in Color. ” “Like, it’s ridiculous. How dare everyone I know be so talented and beautiful. ” Grijalva
co founded the Alberta Free Hutch, a donation kiosk in Portland’s Alberta neighborhood that recently closed
so Grijalva and her partner could focus on other methods o f resistance. Read Street Roots’ profile o f the
Alberta Free Hutch at news.streetroots.org/albertahutch.
donating to the project, visit
celestenoche.com/Wog.
Her knack for natural
portraiture shines as she
travels around the city to photograph and
interview her subjects. Often set in the
interviewee’s workplace - whether a ceramics
studio or a bedroom - the photos evoke a sense
of familiarity, spirit and joy.
Although Noche has called Portland home for
three years and has been working as a full-time
freelance photographer for roughly the same
time, the transition into Portland’s creative
community wasn’t as seamless as she had hoped
it would be.
“When I moved to Portland, I thought it was a
smaller community than San Francisco. It was
creative, and I’d move here and make a lot of
friends in photography,” she said. “Even (after)
three years, I still struggle to connect to the
photography and arts community in Portland. It
really feels like a place where opportunities -
especially with bigger companies or specific
projects - are gate-kept by industry people who
often are white. They end up hiring their friends
- and I don’t blame them because I’d hire my
friends too - but it also just contributes to the
lack of representation and the lack of more
perspectives in media.”
To air her frustrations with the state of
creative industries, she began posting on social
media.
“When I started becoming vocal, I never had a
moment to think, / Will this affect my career in
any way?”’ she said. “I just jumped into it
because I was so impassioned that I couldn’t
say anything. And then that’s really why I
continued to be vocal. I think that silence is a
way of allowing oppression to continue.”
One of the most common response to
Noche’s critiques of the homogeneity in the
See ARTISTS, page 5