FORUM DESIGN AS INQUIRY

Pioneer Mother, which was erected to celebrate the end of the westward expansion and the “conquering peace” it brought to the western U.S. territories. Our work asserted that, far from being the end of the white settlers’ domination of the West, westward expansion set into motion a continuing legacy of white supremacy and structural racism. Our art piece used the form of rustic trail signs to orient the viewer in both time and space to injustices that had occurred in the area in the decades since The Pioneer Mother was built. Signposts surrounded The Pioneer Mother in a grid pattern that extended out into the landscape to reference western

WH: Prior to assigning the large-scale installations, I primed the students with small, cooperative art-making activities. Small-scale, quick, low-pressure activities allowed students to learn how making art together affected both their social relations and the finished artwork, without making them feel as though they had to compromise the quality of their work. There was also a lot of listener-centered and iterative dialogue throughout the course.

How did your group fare with collaborative decision making? How did you come to agree on specific ideas or methods of representation?

BM: The smaller activities that we did before we dived into the final designs were so useful in establishing the group dynamic and setting us up to make decisions together. While we each could have created our own individual response to the design prompt, it was essential to establish a group-oriented ideation and creation processes that elevated all voices. Making a collage of our thoughts, inspirations, and commentary on the statues after our first visit set up an egalitarian creative environment, as each piece of a collage lacks a visible or discernible author. Having a few low-pressure brainstorming sessions, followed by anonymously reviewing and editing one another’s first drafts, created an open forum in which everyone could see how the overall group’s thought processes were progressing. This made the final decision-making process smoother, as the trajectory of where we were coalescing around ideas was clear.

WH: Can you describe the Pioneer and Mother installations, as well as the themes each group explored through art making?

BM: The Pioneer installation,
Destiny Manifested, reflected
the unforeseen consequences of
colonization. Students in that group
(which I did not directly participate
in) constructed a plexiglass pedestal to
place at the base of The Pioneer. Inside
the pedestal were layers of objects,
symbolic of concealed layers of history.
Soil laid the foundation, as all history
is built on the land. Grass seeds were
spread over the soil to represent the
loss of habitat and indigenous people’s
ecology, and corn kernels represented
agricultural practices. Bullet shells
and plastic soldiers referenced the
oppression and warfare that have
displaced communities throughout
history; Douglas-fir cones symbolized
large-scale ecological changes that
occurred throughout the Willamette
Valley region. A layer of moss on
the very top represents the covering
up of history. Reflective Mylar that
lines the top of the pedestal enables
viewers to see themselves as part of the
installation and as agents of historical
change. Finally, The Pioneer stands
atop all of these layers as an icon of
frontierism and oppression.
The piece my group created,
Peace (PAX) For Who?, was meant to
challenge the sentiment behind The
Pioneer installation Destiny Manifested by Peyton Johnson, Shasta Meehan, Chris Weaver,
Chad Hawthorne, and Isabela Ospina.
University of Oregon students Peyton Johnson, Shasta Meehan, Chris Weaver, and
Chad Hawthorne assembling the Pioneer Installation.