Sep 24–Sep 25 Porches and Stoops: An Afro-topia Pop-up
The porch. It’s where we tell stories, sleep on summer nights, braid hair, take photos, watch the world, learn about the past and imagine the future. The porches of Afrotopia are no different. Here you will be met by sounds of music, singing, the smell of food carts and other market stalls. You may come across a youth or griot sharing their own migration tales. Artists creating new worlds. The care and nurture of community. And Black childhood as remembered through common consciousness.
Curated by Albina Vision Trust and Portland Playhouse, visionaries, artists, and business owners, this Afrotopia pop-up takes place at the future home of Albina One – a 94-unit family-focused project by Albina Vision Trust and Edlen & Co., designed to counter the intentional displacement of Black people from the neighborhood due to urban renewal, freeway siting, and long-term gentrification.
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Albina Vision Trust is stewarding the thoughtful reinvention of lower Albina, the cultural heart of Portland and the once-thriving center of Portland’s Black community, from which thousands of residents were forcibly displaced. AVT seeks to honor the neighborhood’s history by restoring its identity and transforming what exists today into a vibrant socially and economically inclusive neighborhood.
Portland Playhouse, a non-profit theatre in the historically Black King neighborhood, integrates theater, creativity and play to celebrate the complexities of the human experience, their mission is to awaken the world to the wonder of theatre.