From May 21 to June 5, 2019, the Vanport Mosaic Festival gives Portland area residents the opportunity to explore and confront our local past and recent history of “othering” and its tragic consequences. Through exhibits, documentary screenings, tours, theater, and dialogues we will celebrate the lessons of resilience and resistance as defined and told by historically oppressed communities. Suzanne LaGrande interviews artistic codirectors Laura Lo Forti and Damaris Webb, as well painter as Henk Pender, whose art is exhibited in this year's festival, and Ewnetu Tsegaw, who helped organize a memorial honoring the legacy of Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian immigrant who was beaten to death by three white supremacists thirty years ago in Portland.
- KBOO