by Rowan Johnson
SOU Class of 2025, Creative Writing

The Poor Farm via poorfarmexperiment.org

Poorhouses, also known as workhouses, started in England as a way for the rich to enact charity. Land and property owners would provide housing and meals for impoverished people, and in return, these people would work for the property owners. These poorhouses existed in both urban and rural areas, and served as a kind of social service that the government at the time was not providing. English colonizers brought poorhouses to the United States, where they became known as poor farms because of the concentration of them in farming towns. Impoverished people, mostly immigrants and Native peoples removed from their homelands, populated the poor farms. While the trade of labor for stable housing and food seems promising, the conditions were often subpar. There were often many people kept in uninsulated, unsanitary rooms, and the food was either donated or the cheapest the landowner could afford. Workers were often abused, with old folks and disabled people facing most of the violence. Poor farms as an institution have been obsolete since the 1970s because of improved social services, but the buildings that housed these people remain scattered across the United States. Artist Michelle Grabner and her partner Brad Killam repurposed a Wisconsin poor farm into an art gallery in 2008. The Poor Farm is a not-for-profit organization that hosts galleries and residencies. Learn more about poorhouses with the link below, and find some of the artists that have been featured in Hello Hello Hello in the Heiter and Treehaven Galleries at the Schneider Museum of Art.

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/residents-of-the-poor-house.htm

Brenna Murphy, Courtesy of the artist

The Oregon Biennial was started by the Portland Art Museum (PAM) in 1949 as a way to highlight the contemporary artists of Portland. When the PAM had its last event in 2006, Oregon artists suffered from a lack of community and opportunity, prompting the group Dejecta to take up the task in 2010. They revamped the Biennial to include all of Oregon, highlighting the diversity of artists and movements in the state. Since then, Disjecta has hosted six other biennials and plans to host one in 2026. Artist and curator Michelle Grabner was invited to curate the 2016 Oregon Biennial. To prepare, she personally travelled to over 100 art galleries looking for artists from different regions to spotlight areas that were often overlooked in art circles. Learn more about her work with the 2016 Oregon Biennial with the link below, and see her curatorial skills and personal work in the Schneider Museum of Art.

https://www.opb.org/radio/programs/state-of-wonder/article/disjecta-portland-biennial-michelle-grabner