For its inaugural exhibition at the new 511 Gallery at the new campus flagship, the Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Center for Art and Design, PNCA is pleased to present Gathering Autonomy: Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, the first retrospective exhibition of this print cooperative that produces graphics for activist organizations around events or actions, located at 511 NW Broadway, Portland, OR, 97209
Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative is a decentralized network of 30 artists committed to making print and design work that reflects a radical social, environmental, and political stance. With members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds operates both as a unified collaboration of similarly minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods. The Cooperative produces collective portfolios, contributes graphics to grassroots struggles for justice, builds large sculptural installations in galleries, and wheat pastes on the streets.
The exhibition will feature work by all 30 members from all over North America as well as a series of topical print portfolios issued by the group. The first of these will be Resourced, which focuses on resource extraction and climate issues, and includes 26 artist prints.
The exhibition will also incorporate PNCA’s alumni-run Creative Activism Lab which will be putting Justseeds methods into practice locally with groups like the immigration rights group, VOZ. The Creative Activism Lab, led by Carmen Denison, Lauren Heagerty, and Danny Mackin, will set up a small print studio in the 511 Gallery and run workshops with students throughout the course of the exhibition.
This exhibition has spawned several programs that are being coordinated by the Creative Activism Lab (CAL), founded in 2014 by PNCA alumni, CAL is a pseudo-institutionalized organization dedicated to exploring and advancing the intersection of art, activism, and social justice.
These programs include:
March 6, 6:30pm
Gathering Thoughts: A Group Conversation with some Justseeds members
Justseeds members Alec Icky Dunn, Chip Thomas, Fernando Marti, Jess X. Chen, Josh McPhee, Roger Peet, Thea Gahr will be on hand to discuss their work as artists and activists within the context of Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative.
March 9, 6:30pm
Gathering Resistance: Black Lives Matter – The Artists’ Call
Gathering Autonomy: Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, Gathering Resistance: Black Lives Matter – The Artists’ Call is a series of micro-presentations and conversations concerning what artists and designers can create to combat anti-Black police violence police.
In collaboration with Justseeds Member Jess X. Chen from Artists’ Against Police Violence, advocacy group, Don’t Shoot Portland, Black Creative Collective: Brown Hall, and Arresting Power Filmmakers, Julie Perini and Erin Yanke.
March 12, 6:30pm
Gathering Thoughts: This is an Emergency!
Co-op members Meredith Stern, Molly Fair, and Jess X. Chen will discuss the work they create and projects Justseeds has undertaken to address issues of reproductive rights and gender justice.
March 19, 12:30pm
Gathering Thoughts: A People’s Art History
Nicolas Lampert will discuss his book A People’s Art History of the United States: 250 Years of Activist Art and Artists Working in Social Justice Movements. In collaboration with PNCA’s MFA in Visual Studies.
image: Mary Tremonte For a Feminist Reconstruction of the Commons 3-color silkscreen print on French paper 40” x 26”
https://cal.pnca.edu/e/1301
