ALL AGES | FREE | FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

8th Vanport Mosaic Festival

Join us for two weeks of memory activism to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the flood that destroyed Vanport - and to honor the community that called Vanport home.

From May 18th to May 29th, the 8th Vanport Mosaic Festival will offer in-person, virtual, and self-paced memory activism opportunities to Remember, Repair, Reclaim, and Re-image our collective story.

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2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the flood that destroyed Vanport, once Oregon’s second-largest city and the largest WWII federal housing project in the United States.  We will commemorate Oregon’s Katrina-like disaster with exhibits, art performances, a reunion/celebration of former Vanport residents, documentary screenings and oral history recordings, tours of the historic Vanport area, and community engagement activities.

Flood survivors are now in their 80s and 90s, so the Festival offers a long-overdue opportunity to honor and learn from their experience. The 75th anniversary of the flood, especially in light of the Covid pandemic and the ongoing devastating impact of climate change, will offer a timely opportunity to reflect on the state of emergency preparedness of our city, particularly on how disasters often replicate and deepen social inequalities.

For a taste of the Vanport Mosaic Festival and its impact, we invite you to watch these short documentaries: 

• History from the Bottom Up: The Making of The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2016
• Legacy of A Forgotten City - The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2017
• Call For Memory Activism: The Vanport Mosaic Festival 2018

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