A map of East Burnside spreads across the north wall of the PSU White Gallery. It’s part of a two-person photography show called Germination in which black-and-white 35mm film photographs separate north and south sides of the directionally divisive street, creating a mind-map of Xander Marrow’s relationship with the Northeast and Southeast neighborhoods.
Marrow’s portion of Germination draws from a collection of more than 14,000 photos taken over the past four years. Handwritten comments lace the collages, tying groups of images together. Scrawls like, “Fight a war like the gays do” pair with images of Portland’s Pride Parade. It feels like a combination of fond memories and a familiar call-to-action. In other images, shadowy, statuesque faces relate with the visage of the water tower on NE Prescott. Beneath them is an ambiguous phrase: “Everything dies. It’s been happening for like forever.”