and one day will tell you so many stories is the first solo presentation of Rami George on the West Coast and particularly Portland, Oregon—a place the artist once knew as home. Two older video essays, Untitled (Samaritan Foundation), 2014 and Untitled (Saturday, October 16, 1993), 2015 are presented alongside a newly-created billboard structure, Untitled (mapping), 2020 in the windows of the Cascade Paragon Arts Gallery. These works are part of an ongoing project exploring the artist’s interactions with New Age religious community, or cult, The Samaritan Foundation. The video essays address the community’s headquarters—a converted jail in Guthrie, Oklahoma—as well as a newspaper article detailing a custody battle over the artist and their sister in relation to the teachings of the group. (Un)tracing the George family’s movements across the United States, the billboard attempts to map encounters with The Samaritan Foundation and other intentional communities. Together, the works demonstrate the interwoven elements of an expanding and contracting series of networks that continue to proliferate through George’s artistic research.  

and one day will tell you so many stories is co-organized by Cascade Paragon Arts Gallery at the Portland Community College (PAG at PCC, Cascade) and the Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (CCAC at PNCA). The installation functions as a satellite site for the group exhibition Networks of (Be)longing, on view October 2–November 15, 2020 at CCAC at 511 NW Broadway. At CCAC George will exhibit a newly commissioned work as a PNCA Artist-in-Residence, alongside the work of Canaries, Tabitha Nikolai, and Mengda Zhang. In keeping with the theme of Networks of (Be)longing that queries the presence, impact, and continued relevance of artistic networks, Networks of (Be)longing unfolds across a series of sites, including the physical space of CCAC on October 2nd (you can make an appointment on the CCAC website), digitally in the PNCA Online Galleries on October 12th, and here, at PAG at PCC Cascade. The exhibition is accompanied by online resources for remote viewing and a suite of online programs. 

Rami George is an interdisciplinary artist currently living and working in Philadelphia. Their work has been presented in exhibitions and screenings at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge; Anthology Film Archives, New York; Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow; Grand Union, Birmingham; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; LUX, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and others. George received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. They continue to be influenced and motivated by political struggles and fractured narratives.

Networks of (Be)longing is organized by Laurel V. McLaughlin, independent curator, and supported by Elizabeth Bilyeu, Director of Cascade Paragon Arts Gallery, and Mack McFarland, Assistant Professor at PNCA and Director of Converge 45.

Rami George, Untitled (Saturday, October 16, 1993), 2015. HD video, color, sound, 5:00 min. Courtesy of the artist.

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A screenshot of Untitled (Saturday, October 16, 1993) shows a weathered newspaper clipping of a figure dressed in a white shirt with red tie standing before microphones. Arms reach out from the left side of the shot with tape recorders and additional microphones preparing to record the speaker’s voice.