SWLF & PRAx: Exciting Collaborations with OSU’s New Arts Center
Patricia Valian Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) Opens on April 6th, Inspiring Collaboration Between the Arts and Sciences
By Sam Olson
SWLF celebrates the opening of the Patrica Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx), Oregon State's new collaboratively-focused center for the arts and sciences. On April 6th, doors opened with a commemorative multi-staged event; students, faculty, staff, and members of the public were treated to dance and music performances, an unveiling of various visual art pieces, and a poetry reading from Professor Karen Holmberg.
"It felt like a returning to community," Holmberg said about the event, during which she read poems of her own, as well as work of other poets, including Corvallis local Clemens Starck, who passed away this March. Holmberg also noted that many of the poems she read were started at Shotpouch Cabin, an arts residency site hosted by the Spring Creek Project, also affiliated with PRAx. "This center is all about connectedness," Holmberg reflected, a sentiment echoed in the diversity of themes and mediums on display there.
In that spirit, just a few days after opening, students in Professor Jennifer Richter's graduate poetry workshop wrote ekphrastic poetry based on artworks encountered in the center. Specifically, poets were tasked with responding to images from Rick Silva's collection, "Field Guide to Birds of a Parallel Future," as well as an A.I. inspired sculpture by Rafik Anadol. These poems were then edited, workshopped, and broadcast in the PRAx lobby.
"I’m constantly seeking out-of-classroom opportunities and arranging multi-genre collaborations for my students, to offer them new creative lenses to look through and to remind them that inspiration is everywhere," Richter said. "Having PRAx right on campus is a real gift; my students and I have visited often in its first month, and each time, we leave with wonderfully widened perspectives." Since that first visit, Richter's graduate poetry students have continued to engage with the diverse offerings at PRAx; they attended and responded in writing to "Slumberland," a virtual reality theater production, and wrote ekphrastic poetry in response to the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Stone Award recipient Robin Wall Kimmerer, who speaks at PRAx in late May.
SWLF’s connection and influence to PRAx goes even deeper. As part of the School's continual efforts to create opportunities for interdisciplinary storytelling, the department sponsored a feature film, "The Wonder and the Worry," which explored the braided careers of photojournalist and former Editor-in-Chief of National Geographic Chris Johns and his daughter Louise, also a photojournalist, and screened in the PRAx theater in April. Later that month, PRAx also served as the live recording site for LiveWire, a radio talk-show co-hosted by SWLF Professor and MFA Director Elena Passarello. Lastly, emblematic of the breadth of connection with the department, former SWLF Director Peter Betjemann is now Executive Director of PRAx, signifying the likelihood of continued academic and artistic cross-over between the department and the center.
A representation of community in action, PRAx is an embodiment of collaboration and communication between the arts and sciences. "The arts invite us to see, to think, to listen, to feel, and to reflect," says Patricia Valian Reser, whose $25 million donation supported the creation of this center. "I can’t imagine a more urgent path for humans and for humanity." The School of Writing, Literature, and Film looks forward to future opportunities to engage with PRax in merging creative storytelling with the sciences to respond to this era's most pressing issues.
