TO THE RIVER

AUXART has been invited to organize a residency in Portland’s Zidell Ship Yards during the Summer and Fall of 2022. The project site is a breathtaking 300 Yards long, running from the base of the OHSU tram to the Willamette River. Our plan is to build and weave a matrix of scrapwood tributaries over the course of the summer that serves as a setting through which public audiences can journey to the river. The work will be built from long ribs of salvaged millwork waste bound together by bicycle innertubes. It will be underfoot and overhead, narrow and wide, serpentine. The scale of the work will provide an opportunity to create a long, immersive walk that combines the continuous sculpture environment with resident sound design and weekly live concert events that feature dozens of musicians performing at intervals along the route.

To The River is focused on the way that rivers connect people and cultures, and the ways people share going to the river for healing. The summer-long residency explores flowing geographic and cultural confluences and shared systems of commerce and sustenance. It keeps a steady eye on the site’s history in Native American life and the complex legacy of its use for breaking war ships. The project’s objective is to bring dozens of performers together as fresh sources of renewing and maybe harmonizing vibration.

-Philip Krohn
AUXART Creator

AUXART is a program of the Charitable Partnership Fund, an Oregon public charity, EIN 931267966.