Prismid Sanctuary is a place in Portland, OR for Indigenous, Black & all POC artists and cultural workers to convene, rest, and heal.
Photos by Robert Franklin (1, 3), Tojo Andrianarivo (2, 4, 6, 7), esperanza spalding (5), and Jason Hill (8)
OUR GUIDING PRAYERS
PRISMID’S ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES click + to read more
-
We respond to the need in our artistic and cultural communities for arts, performance, and gathering spaces that are cultivated by Black and Indigenous vision and values. We prioritize the needs of Black and Indigenous artists & cultural-workers and the tending of our inter-communal relationships in co-liberation with all communities of color.
-
We aim to counter systems of scarcity in the abundant environment we co-create with each other. All PRISMID offerings are freely given to those who participate with us.
-
We invite the medicine of slowing down, moving intentionally with spirit, and engaging with space as a prayer of which all of us are part of. This prayer is to create a field of wellness that allows somatic experiencing of more liberatory ways of being in relationship with place and each other.
-
We are guided by living in reciprocity with the land as a decolonizing practice. We tend to the needs of the land and our more-than-human relatives as inextricable from the thriving of our human community.
-
We hold both reparations for Black people and land-back to Indigenous people as central to our world-building, and to a collective present and future we are invested in. We claim our sovereignty by embodying otherwise ways of relating, future-building, and cultivating space, that honor and acknowledge complexity, inter-relation, and distinct differences between our communities’ respective liberation projects & dreams.
-
We practice and share documentation of our process and work as future-building, with an intention to be of service to a broader network of those who share resonance with our work. We practice modeling self-awareness and reflection as an organization, with an intention to hold space for conflict, repair, harm reduction, and relational healing within our shared communities.
Photos above by Jason Hill
Land Back Site
Prismid Sanctuary will be a permanent, physically and economically accessible hub for arts and culture, food sovereignty, and land restoration, by and for BIPoC community members. We embody the understanding that both Reparations for Black people and Land Back to Indigenous people are central to addressing root causes of systemic harm.
And, there is no blueprint. Along with a commitment for Prismid to be a Land Back site, we are committed to an ongoing process of co-developing, with Black and Indigenous community, what this looks like in practice. Together, we are leaning into the journey of listening, unlearning, and moving in integrity, thoroughness, and transparency as we work to ensure that future generations of Black and Indigenous artists and cultural-workers can inherit space, land, and resources irrevocably dedicated to them, in a future of shared stewardship.
Land + People Acknowledgement
Prismid Sanctuary honors the Indigenous peoples of this place with our commitment to prioritizing the needs of Black and Indigenous artists & cultural-workers and the tending of our inter-communal relationships in co-liberation with all communities of color.
Since time immemorial the Indigenous peoples of these lands, the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, Wasco, bands of the Chinook, and many other Tribes call the confluence of the Willamette and Nichiwa their home.
Their connection to living along the rivers, stewarding the land and waters remains strong. The Columbia river valley has always been a place of gathering, where community comes to trade, tend plant kin, fish the rivers, pray, celebrate, create, dance, sing and be in community.
Prismid Sanctuary holds both reparations for Black people and land-back to Indigenous people as central to our world-building, and to a collective present and future we are invested in.