It is artists, designers and makers who have long forged Portland’s signature spirit. As our city’s largest and most exuberant art school, the PSU School of Art + Design is at the center of the action. In an era of both challenge and possibility, a new home for the school is critical. The planned facility will be a dynamic hub to serve diverse students and incubate creative innovation in a uniquely Portland way. The result? Opportunity for all.
I usually work small scale, so it’s been a really good challenge to have work that is so visible. This can’t be ignored.
Nia Musiba // Current PSU Art + Design student recently featured on Oregon ArtBeat for creating a large-scale mural in downtown Portland
A NEW home for a signature program
PSU’s current Art + Design programs are spread over five locations on campus, all inadequate. The new space will redefine what is possible for this signature program. It will bring students, faculty, industry and community together in one place for the first time. With light-filled studios and classrooms, sufficient space for material storage (finally!), and flexible locations for exhibition and collaboration, the center will foster belonging, innovation and success.
Empowering Creators and Changemakers
At PSU’s School of Art + Design, students with diverse lived experiences interact, exchange ideas and challenge conventional aesthetic boundaries. This multiplicity of perspectives reflects the makeup of a school where more than 40% of students identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color). Driven by a belief in the power of art to shape society, the school provides critical space and resources for these emerging artists, designers and art historians to question, reflect and create.
Fostering Creative Thinking Across PSU
The School of Art + Design vision is to enable imaginative thinking unbound by traditional structures—where programs can focus on interdisciplinary ideation and problem solving inspired by the curiosity of students and the expertise of faculty and community partners. Ultimately, we hope to export a creativity ethos across campus so that PSU can become the nation’s most invention-forward university. Unleashing graduates in every discipline who are also creative collaborators can profoundly change our world for the better.
New possibilities for Portland
The project will also create opportunities to strengthen PSU’s connections to Portland’s Cultural District and Innovation Quadrant as well as to business and industry, forming new pathways to turn our region’s most creative ideas into impact and action. We know that our city’s transformation post-pandemic will be led by artists, makers, and creative thinkers. This is a golden opportunity to harness the moment and build a thriving center for creativity in the center of downtown Portland.
Contributions large and small to PSU's new School of Art + Design facility will help unleash the power of curiosity, enable opportunity, spark academic inquiry, and give us all greater access to the shared human experiences that bring our lives purpose and meaning.
For more information about opportunities to support the School of Art + Design capital project contact: Jaymee Jacoby, Assistant Vice President for Development 503-890-4962 or jacobyj@psuf.org
THE ARTS MATTER
With your help, we can make a new space for tomorrow's makers, thinkers and innovators. Thank you for your support!