On Thursday, Nov. 11, Latinx Student Union (LSU) and Gender and Sexuality Partnership (GSP) collaborated with Diversity and Inclusion Programs (DIP) to host Our Campus, Our Canvas — a showcase of art and craftwork from UP students and faculty who identify as queer, transgender, Black, indigenous, or people of color.
The event featured eight different student artists, who set up tables with their work at the Pilot House Plaza for the event last Thursday.
“We at GSP really wanted to reach out to and collaborate with DIP and also many of the clubs on campus to see what we can do and see how we can best empower our QTBIPOC students and support their businesses,” Chivon Ou, director of diversity and inclusion for GSP, said.
The artists’ work ranged from acrylic painting and graphic illustrations to crocheting and sticker-prints.
One featured artist, sophomore English and psychology major Soleia Quinn, specializes in acrylic portraits and landscapes, which she has practiced since high school.
Quinn said that this event is a great opportunity for QTBIPOC artists to showcase their work, and hopes for future events.
“Having an event like this is really cool because I think the minority groups here are really beautiful and there’s a lot of diversity and talent and gorgeous art that people create out of that,” Quinn said. “It’s really cool to have an event that showcases all of that gorgeous talent.”
According to Coordinator for Diversity and Inclusion Programs Yuri Hernández Osorio, the event was student-planned, and hopefully will be the first of other similar events.
“When we were brainstorming, we were going to bring in more outside folks, and I said, ‘why bring in outside folks when we have local talent here in our campus?’” Hernández Osorio said.
Cultural clubs and DIP are looking forward to collaborating on similar events, and encourage other groups on campus to reach out with their own ideas.
“We encourage clubs to reach out and collaborate with other QTBIPOC clubs as well so we can cultivate a culture of support and empowerment for students that need it at the University of Portland,” Ou said.
Carlos Fuentes is the copy editor for The Beacon. He can be reached at fuentes22@up.edu.
