Art and Democracy: A Conversation with TK Smith and Oregon artists

Come join us for a night of art and conversation at Soho House Portland with TK Smith leading a talk with Lisa Jarrett, Vo Vo. These Oregon artists will discuss advocacy within their artistic practices and the role of the Oregon Contemporary Artists' Biennial in supporting artists of this region. A number of 2026 Artists' Biennial artists will be in attendance as well. Enjoy a night filled with inspiration and community as Soho House provides delicious food and drinks for us in the beautiful Music Room. Supported by The Ford Family Foundation and Soho House.

Date: Wed April 29 2026

Time: 6:00 PM cocktails + food / 6:30 PM conversation begins

Location: Soho House Portland

Can't make this event? Support Oregon Contemporary by preordering the 2026 Artists' Biennial Catalog in our shop !

About the artists in conversation

TK Smith is a curator, writer, and cultural historian based in Atlanta, GA. He currently serves as Curator, Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora, at the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Smith’s writing has been published in exhibition catalogues, academic journals, and periodicals, including Art Papers where he is a contributing editor. Smith is a doctoral candidate in the History of American Civilization program at the University of Delaware, where he studies the intersections of material culture, the built environment, and identity.

Lisa Jarrett (Portland, OR) is an artist and educator. She is Associate Professor of Community and Context Arts at Portland State University and the co-founder/director of various collaborations including KSMoCA (Dr MLK Jr School Museum of Contemporary Art) and Art 25: Art in the Twenty Fifth Century. Her intersectional practice considers the politics of difference within a variety of settings including: schools, landscapes, fictions, racial imaginaries, studios, communities, museums, galleries, walls, mountains, mirrors, floors, rivers, and lenses. She exists and makes socially engaged work within the African Diaspora. She recently discovered that her primary medium is questions; the most urgent of which is: What will set you free?

Vo Vo (they/them) explores support strategies and models of community care within a post-traumatic social landscape, focusing on the resilience of BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+ and disabled communities. They are editor of an internationally renowned publication, speaker, educator, curator, artist and musician who has exhibited and toured in Australia, Germany, Indonesia, The Netherlands, Singapore, Croatia, Mexico, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand, Vietnam, Sweden, Malaysia, and the States. In their transdisciplinary art, they work in textiles, embroidery, audio, video, weaving, and furniture building. Their installations seek to interrogate power dynamics, structural oppression, challenge histories and realities of imperialism, white supremacy and colonization.

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