- P:ear
On any given night, roughly 4,000 women and men are homeless across Portland, and as many as 400 of them are homeless youth living on the streets.
Here to help is Survival Guide to the Streets of Portland, a powerful show at the Central Library's Collins Gallery. It's a product of the youth of p:ear. Short for "project: education, art, recreation," p:ear is a nonprofit that works with homeless youth aged 15-24 via creative mentorship.
The Collins Gallery show includes screenprints and large paper skull masks with infographics taken from a Multnomah County study on the city's homeless done last year. The prints give off-the-cuff insights like, "Go to college, it's a great place to dig through the trash," and "Carry keys to avoid incarceration." They were created in conjunction with the Independent Publishing Resource Center, during a series of workshops. (P:ear has partnered with a long list of local businesses and artists in the past, including New Seasons, Por Qué No, and artists like Jesse Reno, Blaine Fontana, and Y La Bamba.)
