What I Carry: A collaborative photo+writing project with Portland’s Street Community & Photos of Things That Matter: A Collaborative Project with Street Roots Vendors

May 7 – 30, 2026
Opening Reception- First Thursday, May 7, 6 – 9pm

Portland Arts Collective
122 NW Couch Street
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 853-0418
Hours: Wednesday thru Saturday 12-5 and by appointment, anytime (email or call/text)
https://www.portlandartscollective.org/

Poetry Readings: Saturday, May 9, 2pm-3:00pm

“What I Carry: Voices from The Street” (video), Saturday, May 23, 2pm-3:00pm

“Helpers” (video) by Kelly Clendenon, Saturday, May 30, 2pm-3:00pm

What I Carry: A collaborative photo+writing project with Portland’s Street Community

“This innovative project explores the burdens, hopes, and dreams of Portland’s homeless population through cherished items they carry throughout their lives, fostering compassion and understanding in a world often divided. Through compelling storytelling and creative expression, award-winning photographer Jim Lommasson amplifies voices from Portland’s homeless community, addressing themes of mental health, addiction, housing, personal growth, family dynamics and illuminates the resilience and humanity behind each object – and the person carrying it. This project resonates deeply for me, spreading a message of shared humanity and the healing power of empathy.”

– John Lewis

Photos of Things That MatterA Collaborative Project with Street Roots Vendors

Photos of Things that Matter trusts that those who live the stories are the ones meant to tell them. Through 35mm film images, hand-made photobooks, and zines, Street Roots vendors trace the places that hold them; streets walked, familiar places, and a changing landscape.Their photographs hold a living archive, and each frame is an act of claiming space. Together, these stories speak on resilience and imagination, inviting us to slow down, look closely, and truly listen.

The photographs presented were created through weekly photography and visual storytelling workshops at Street Roots’ School in the Sky. More than skill-building sessions, the workshops intend for conversation, relationship, and trust. The work does not rely on participants having prior experience in photography; instead, it builds from their own knowledge and skills, using image-making and bookmaking as ways to express and tell their stories. With support from peers, project leaders, and visiting guests, each session is shaped by those in the room, allowing the process itself to guide what is made and how it is shared.

Jim Lommasson is a freelance photographer and storyteller based in Portland. Lommasson is a recipient of the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize from The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Lommasson’s ongoing collaborative storytelling projects: What We Carried: Fragments and Memories from the Cradle of Civilization with Iraqi and Syrian refugees was exhibited at the Ellis Island Museum of Immigration in 2018. Stories of Survival and Remembrance: A Call to Action for Genocide Prevention was exhibited at the United Nations Headquarters in 2023.