What is the purpose of a public monument? To whom does it belong? How does a monument remind us of what we care about and who we are as a community? If you designed a monument, what would it look or feel or sound like? What story would it tell?
These were the questions considered by 70 students—from rising kindergarteners to high school graduates—from both the Oregon and Washington sides of the Columbia River Gorge. Teaching artists with Arts in Education of the Gorge collaborated with Portland Art Museum staff to introduce a broad range of approaches to the question of what a monument might be. Students took inspiration from works on view at the Museum including Todd McGrain’s York, Jeffrey Gibson’s They Come From Fire, and the Mystic Mountain exhibition alongside the landscape, parks, and public art of their communities. The resulting exhibition shines a light on what these students want to remember, protect, and express as they look out at the world around them.
Based in Hood River, Arts in Education of the Gorge serves over 7,500 students a year across six counties in Oregon and Washington through in-school arts residencies and after-school workshops and summer camps. For this exhibition, teaching artists Harvest Henderson, Kawika Kalama, Kristi Riedel, Daniel George, and Kristi Heck led workshops at Industrial Street Studios, the Hood River Fire Station, Hood River Valley High School, Mosier Community School, and Wishram High and Elementary School in summer 2026. The exhibition will travel to Columbia Center for the Arts in spring 2027.
