The Portland Office of Transportation is hosting an open house focused on transportation projects and potential funding sources in the South Portland Neighborhood, which includes the South Waterfront District, the historic Lair Hill neighborhood and the North Macadam Urban Renewal Area.

Projects that will be discussed at this open house include:

• SW Gibbs Pedestrian Bridge
• North Macadam Transportation Strategy
• North Macadam Transportation System Development Charges Overlay
• North Macadam Transportation Management Association

Location: David Evans & Associates Inc. - Willamette River Room - 2100 SW River Parkway.

When: October 7th, 2008; 5pm - 8pm, stop by anytime between those hours.

Public Welcome

The Ross Island Vision Team (made up of Audubon Society of Portland, Greenworks, PC, Urban Greenspaces Institute, Willamette Riverkeeper, Melissa Meideros and Christina Frank) invites you to join them, along with Portland Parks and Rec. to discuss plans for the future management and restoration of  Ross Island. Here is the agenda for the meeting:

> Presentation by City of Portland to manage and restore the 45-acre site on Ross Island that are currently in public ownership.

> Presentation by Ross Island Vision Team regarding future restoration and management of entire 4 island complex.

> Volunteer Opportunities at Ross Island

> Strategies to establish a No Wake Zone in Holgate Channel

> Next steps to establish a formal structure for the Friends of Ross Island.

For more information, please click here.

I have wanted to work with the amazing visual artist - Bill Will, for a long time.   He has worked on and off with choreographers for many years, and I have always deeply admired his wit, subtle politics and use of materials.  I considered it a milestone in my own making when  - about 10 years ago, he went out of his way to let me know that he thought my then current project was really exciting.  For me, it was a huge affirmation about how I was working.  So, when it was clear that the Artist in Residence Program was going to go forward, I called him up to see if he wanted to collaborate on a major scale project for the park.  Most often empty and lonely for activity, I wanted to create an event for the South Waterfront Neighborhood Park that would help to dream it into being; tatto it with the life and energy that neighborhood parks should have.   This one will become a formal neighborhood park by June of 2009.  The short story is that Bill said yes, and we began the very daunting process of trying to create a work that could, in scale and energy, inhabit the nearly two city blocks of open space that the park occupies.  Many stunning ideas have lived and died over the last 9 months.  A neighborhood in constant, dramatic physical transformation is a tough place to work.  One turns around one day and the whole thing looks different.  How to create something that can ride the flux, weather changes?  Bill’s installation 20×20 and our shared creation of Promenade are our responses to the land, the history, the natural elements and the spirit of gathering that parks instill.  Working in close collaboration with sound designer Seth Nehil and lighting designer Bill Boese, along with a core group of dancers: Daniel Addy, Noelle Stiles, Tahni Holt, Eric Nordstrom, Kathleen Keogh, Katie Arrants, Rebecca Harrison and Tracy Broyles, we are creating a very singular performance gathering.  We hope you will join us on Saturday, July 19th an hour before sunset. PROMENADE 

•  Saturday, July 19th
• South Waterfront Neighborhood Park, SW Moody@ Curry
• gathering begins an hour before sunset
• Free; picnics and all ages welcome
• Go green with the tram, streetcar, bicycle or a carpool
• Safe, secure and free bicycle parking available at SW Moody and Curry

One-of-a-kind and unrepeatable, Promenade is an episodic dance, sound and light performance event that involves more than 30 performers, bicycles and a rising moon. Coinciding with Bill Will’s July guest artist residency as part of the AiR Program, Promenade will emerge from Will’s installation - 20 x 20, on Saturday evening, July 19th.  Almost two city blocks in scale, 20 x 20 is a site-specific installation using simple materials that calls attention to the land, its simple proportions and subtle topography, as well as emphasizes the movement of the sun and wind throughout the day and the changes evoked by the natural phenomena of sunset, dusk, and moonrise.  Promenade invites the viewer to traverse the installation at one’s leisure - sitting, resting and engaging as desired.  One night only, Promenade references the rural, the urban, the past and the future of this area of the city.  

Just noticed a great article in today’s Tribune unveiling OHSU’s development plans for the north part of South Waterfront and their Schnitzer campus.

Read the whole article here: “Healthy Ambitions.”

In the last several years, our country’s cultural historians have slowly begun to tell the story of the early Chinese immigrant experience in the U.S.  Denied the opportunity to own land, gain citizenship or transport their families to our mainland, these almost exclusively male Chinese laborers suffered deep hardship, all the while clearing much of the land that is now most prized in our great cities located along the entire stretch of the west coast - Vancouver, B.C. to Los Angeles.  For his May project, AiR guest artist, Horatio Hung-Yan Law -  a native of Hong Kong but New Yorker since the age of 16, will explore how our cities might look and feel differently had the Chinese had more opportunity to assert themselves on the cities that they so painstakingly transformed on behalf of others.  In a three-part installation that traverses both the AiR studio and the South Waterfront neighborhood, Horatio will use common materials that we associate with either a Chinese or Asian lineage - rice, bamboo, chopsticks, t’ai chi - to play with how the South Waterfront district might be different today had the Chinese laborers been able to establish a presence there.  Please join Horatio for his opening reception on Saturday, May 3rd from 11a-2p in the AiR studio, and for the free t’ai chi workshops that accompany his residency in preparation for the T’ai Chi for 1,000 gathering on Saturday, May 31st.  In addition to the workshop on May 3rd during the reception, workshop times include:  May 14th, 10a-noon; May 21st, 6-8p; May 28th, 6-8p. To sign-up, please contact Horatio at: horatiolaw@gmail.com 

For those of you who didn’t make it down to Adam Kuby’s end-of-month exhibit in March, he has posted the fruits of his residency at his website.  You can click here to see them. The points and the issues they address were informed largely by the input of many, many participants over the month.  Thank you to those of you who participated. The project will continue to evolve, so please let Adam know of other places and other issues you think could be included.  Adam can be contacted at: adam@adamkuby.com.