Lost City, Living Memories: Vanport Through The Voices of Its Residents
Project directed by Story Midwife, Laura Lo Forti
Since 2014 Story Midwife Laura Lo Forti has been facilitating a participatory oral history project to capture, honor, and preserve the memories of those who lived in Vanport, Oregon’s second largest city and WWII largest federal housing project, wiped out by a flood in 1948.
Media makers, educators, activists, historians, family members with ties to Vanport, continue to work together in this “history from the bottom up” effort. Through archival footage, historic photographs, and compelling first-person narratives, this collection of community-produced short films creates a rich and elaborate “mosaic” of the vibrant multi-racial community that called Vanport home.
Check our calendar for upcoming screenings, or get in touch at info@vanportmosaic.org to host one.
This on-going project has been made possible by:
Oregon Arts Commission, The Kinsman Foundation, Oregon Historical Society.
The entire oral history collection is in the process of being archived and made available online by Portland State University as part of their Special Collections & University Archives.
“This project is very important. It tells the true history because the people who lived it are the ones telling their story.”
