Last Thursday

We embrace Alberta’s 25+ year tradition of Last Thursday!Joy Now2

Find out more information about Last Thursday here: Last Thursday on Alberta

LAST THURSDAY

LT is, and has been, the only free stage for artists for 25+ years. This free platform has fostered the most creative, unusual, exciting and unsterilized event in Portland, landing it into travel guidebooks, international magazine articles and exploding in popularity bringing over 60,000 people to the Alberta District during it’s peak monthly evenings.

Alberta is a true model of a downtrodden neighborhood’s success in bringing people and commerce to the street. That attempt soon became the economic engine for businesses before becoming the iconic urban festival of Portland. What a story of grassroots urban process and change.

LT is a public gathering. Business owners started LT as an attempt to take back the street and invited the public to share it with them and this has continued for seventeen years. Last Thursday produced a public space that has crossed cultural boundaries, backgrounds, values and associations. From their struggles came Alberta’s artistic cultural identity. They used their creative resources to build community and it is inclusive. This is something honorable, inspiring and truly grassroots in a neighborhood that has had to do it themselves having survived discrimination by zoning and accustomed to being forgotten, separated and disinvested. It is a marginalized community using urban space to redefine their economic and cultural well-being.

Insurgent Citizenship. We are citizens and citizens serve constitutive role in shaping the political and physical spaces in our city. It is our counter identity in this urban landscape and we claim it as ours. Other examples of insurgent citizenship that worked to create new ideas in policy is the Dias De los Muertos festivals in Southern California or the Puerto Rican Day parade in New York City.

Last Thursday demands a novel approach in order for the Alberta District to keep their cultural identity. It is placemaking at it’s finest. Nourishing creative culture is the answer.

Arts and culture are vital to community life. We also believe that community is vital to arts and culture. We’ve seen that the organizations who thrive are the ones who understand and connect with their communities. -National Arts Strategies

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.