Portraits for Change Exhibit Launch

June 5, 2020 • Posted in Podcasts • 0 Comments

Isaac: All right. Let’s get this show started. Despite what maps say otherwise, this is Duwamish land. My name is Isaac Rivera. I am a PhD student in the Department of Geography and research assistant with the Relational Poverty Network. I want to begin by acknowledging the spaces that we are on right now. In particular, I want to acknowledge the traditional shared homelands of the Coast Salish peoples, and all tribes and bands including the Duwamish, Muckleshoot, Snohomish, Snoqualmie, Suquamish, and Tulalip nations. As someone who is not Indigenous to this place or from these spaces, there is a responsibility that comes with that. That comes with being in place. But in this case, I want to use it to situate ourselves around this idea of ownership. I don’t think the word “homeless” describes the situation very well, or the gravity of being un-shelter, especially for Native peoples. I want to thank you all for being here. I invite now Professor Vicky Lawson to get us started with the program.

Prof Lawson: Hi everybody. My name’s Victoria Lawson. I am so delighted to welcome you all to this event today and to see the portrait project. I’m the director of the Honors Program and a Professor of geography, and I work with Professor Sarah Elwood on the Relational Poverty Network. I’m so excited that we get to share these portraits with you, this exhibit, and all of the powerful lessons that they offer. We’re delighted that for the next three weeks, a lot of people on this campus can not only encounter the beauty of the art, but also read the stories of the people. The biographies are actually the most powerful part of this exhibit. And we hope that you’ll do well with those after we do this event, this exhibit. This moment would not be happening without the collaboration of a lot of people. And I want to take a moment to thank and recognize them all because this could not happen with any one person. It had to be everybody involved first and foremost. I want to thank Jon Williams. Jon, you’ve moved and all of our colleagues and collaborators that Real Change. You’re going to get to meet several of them today. This is their exhibit. And we are so grateful that they were willing to collaborate with us and trust us with this exhibit, because it’s something very, very special and very meaningful. So thank you. Second, where’s Sam? There she is. I want to recognize Sam Freedman, who is the peer educator for our class and also a program manager at Roots, the rising of the show’s Youth Shelter in the U District. Sam has been with me for years thinking about this work and making me a little tiny bit better at it than I would otherwise be. So thank you so much. Sarah Elwood and Isaac Rivera have also been scheming and planning and creating this for the past year, doing all of the practical stuff, but also all the vision stuff. And again, this would not have come into being without all of your hard work. And I’m just incredibly grateful to partner with you on it. I get to be the one doing the same. But it wouldn’t be here without you. So thank you for that.