Portland’s Albina neighborhood has long been the heart of the city’s Black community. Its history and culture are rich, having flourished despite racist laws that plagued the people living there for years.
The neighborhood retains its sense of close-knit community, with a high percentage of BIPOC people still living there, which is perhaps why when Planned Parenthood moved into the neighborhood in 2010, it wasn’t welcomed with open arms.
To remedy that, Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette has opened its space to local artists and businesses through its Shared Window art installation.
The story of this collaborative art project begins in 2015.
“At the time, they didn’t integrate well with this neighborhood and get to know the culture and the beauty of the Albina Historic Neighborhood,” said Kristi Scdoris, the current director of marketing and communications.
The neighborhood and Planned Parenthood’s relationship issue predated Scdoris’ work with the organization. But she saw the problem and to solve it, she began with a block party.
“It didn’t have anything to do with Planned Parenthood. It had to do with being a good neighbor in the neighborhood, getting to know the folks in the neighborhood,” she said.
Planned Parenthood employees didn’t wear their organization’s shirt and no pamphlets with health information were handed out. They had just over 100 people in attendance.
The following year, the crowd grew. The third year, with the help of a local business, Kee’s Loaded Kitchen, more than 1,200 people formed a line around the block.
Then COVID hit, ending the block parties and incidentally cutting ties between the workers from Planned Parenthood, who were working from home, and local businesses, which were closed for safety.
As people returned to work and businesses slowly reopened, Planned Parenthood turned its attention back to its neighbors and wondered how it could reconnect with them.
Scdoris, with the help of FISK Projects, a Portland-based group focused on enhancing art and design in everyday life, began Shared Window.
It began as clings on Planned Parenthood’s windows, a sort of free curated ad space for local businesses looking to participate – literally sharing their window.
It has grown, with FISK’s help, into nine unique works of art by nine local artists. The pieces of art hang in a large waiting room, adding a splash of color to the medical center.
Lindsey Cuenca Walker’s piece on La Cocina, a restaurant that serves homemade Mexican food, was a unique collaboration between artist and small business.
“One of the things that was exciting to me about participating in this project was that it gave me an opportunity to help my community in a really concrete way that was just super exciting.”
Cuenca Walker said spending time with Estela Sanchez, co-owner of La Cocina, and drawing parallels between the passion Sanchez and she have for their respective creative endeavors helped her create her piece.
“Some of the elements in the piece were three chairs, which symbolize the three generations of the business,” said Cuenca Walker. “There’s also a molcajete, which is the grinding apparatus that is used to make the mole that Estela spent 14 years perfecting. The passion behind her approach to making food for others is really, really impressive.”
Raymond Chau is the co-owner of Lúa, a Thai restaurant that strives to bring Thai dishes that aren’t as popular to the American palate into the spotlight and stomachs of those in Portland. While Lúa and its assigned artist, Laney Punarate only spoke via email, Chau said the experience was worthwhile.
“I thought it was a great opportunity. We had never heard about the project before, but then when we looked into it, we thought it was great for the community and really great for exposure for like small businesses like us,” said Chau.
The works hangs in Lúa for its customers to see.
“This art is inspired by that artist. It’s one of a kind,” said Chau. “It’s definitely something that people see right away when they come into the restaurant.”
But it wasn’t just restaurants involved in the project. Artist Nia Musiba was just at the beginning of their career when they were approached by FISK Projects for Shared Window installation.
They were one of the first artists to work on this during the pandemic. All their correspondence with Turning Heads hair salon, which specializes in silk pressing and wrapping hair, was via email.
“As a black person that gets their hair done, like it felt really awesome to be paired up with Turning Heads,” said Musiba. “The act of braiding my hair, getting my hair done, was something that really helped me, feel connected to my blackness growing up.”
They said the experience was healing for them but the fact that the work of art would be in the Planned Parenthood meant a lot too.
“I just feel really grateful to be at a place in my career where I get to say yes or no to certain clients and working for someplace like Planned Parenthood that is, in my opinion, actually like making positive change in people’s lives, providing lifesaving care to people and guidance, counseling, et cetera, feels a lot better to me than like working for bigger brands that maybe don’t have more of an impact.”
In all, there were nine artists and nine works of art created. The businesses range from family-owned restaurants to furniture banks like Community Warehouse. Scdoris hopes these works of art are just the beginning for the project.
“A lot of them are BIPOC small businesses and don’t have a marketing budget and so part of the project that when we worked with FISK was that we paid for the project and then part of that project plan was to give stipends to the businesses and the artists also as just another way of showing our support,” said Scdoris.
Scdoris said as a third-generation Portlander, when she thought of Portland at its very best, part of that was the sense of community it can foster.
“We are one of the larger organizations in this vicinity. We have a responsibility to the community. And as Planned Parenthood, we’re not always met with welcome open arms,” she said. “And we really truly understand that. And part of this was kind of paying our respects to the Albina community, to our problematic history with the black community in general, and Planned Parenthood, you know, from the beginning.”
All Planned Parenthoods offers a wide breadth of services in reproductive care including STI testing and treatments, wellness exams, birth control, cancer screenings, PREP, gender-affirming care, vasectomy care and abortion care.
Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette offers the community all those services and their shared window.
Destiny Johnson | djohnson@oregonian.com | Threads | Listen to my podcast with Lizzy Acker!
