Founded by poet Liam Whitworth in January 2018, Future Prairie is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit queer artist collective in Portland, Oregon. We pay LGBTQIA+ Oregon-based working-class artists to design, curate, and produce art that showcases new and better dreams of the future. We've created live shows, public installations, plays, films, placemaking events, and a podcast. We present, publish, mentor, and support contemporary artists, especially creative writers, with events, podcasts, workshops, readings, and fellowships. Our Executive Director is opera singer Emmanuel “Onry” Henreid.
Future Prairie's work is supported by a wide range of community–based organizations and businesses that recognize the collective’s contributions to Oregon’s cultural landscape, such as Portland Art Museum’s Center for an Untold Tomorrow, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust, City of Beaverton, Tin House, Borealis Philanthropy, Mellon Foundation, Bodecker Foundation, Collins Foundation, Literary Arts, All Classical Portland Radio, Oregon Community Foundation, Prosper Portland, Portland Area Theatre Alliance, Blick, Jeremy Wilson Foundation, Arts Action Alliance Foundation AKA Clackamas County Arts Alliance, Multnomah County Cultural Coalition, Oregon Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry, Jocelyn & Robert Rahm, McMenamins, Puff Coffee, and Heart Coffee.
In the last 5 years, Future Prairie has paid 389 LGBTQIA+ Oregon-based working-class artists to make new art.
Future Prairie's work is supported by a wide range of community–based organizations and businesses that recognize the collective’s contributions to Oregon’s cultural landscape, such as Portland Art Museum’s Center for an Untold Tomorrow, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust, City of Beaverton, Tin House, Borealis Philanthropy, Mellon Foundation, Bodecker Foundation, Collins Foundation, Literary Arts, All Classical Portland Radio, Oregon Community Foundation, Prosper Portland, Portland Area Theatre Alliance, Blick, Jeremy Wilson Foundation, Arts Action Alliance Foundation AKA Clackamas County Arts Alliance, Multnomah County Cultural Coalition, Oregon Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, Woodlawn Coffee and Pastry, Jocelyn & Robert Rahm, McMenamins, Puff Coffee, and Heart Coffee.
In the last 5 years, Future Prairie has paid 389 LGBTQIA+ Oregon-based working-class artists to make new art.
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SELECTED WORKS
- Social Practice: Walking as Research Practice
- Social Practice: Flowers for Black Elders
- Social Practice: Better Than a Shoebox Archival Workshop
- Social Practice: Singing in Yale Union
- Social Practice: Singing School
- Social Practice: Oregon Trans Film Festival
- Future Prairie Radio Podcast
- Experimental Film: Self Defense
- Theater: Citrine
- Experimental Film: Lilies
- Criticism: Pitchfork
- Literature: Tin House
OUR VALUES
Oregon’s arts and culture ecosystem is shaped by histories of labor, migration, and displacement. We honor the stories embedded here. We refuse to ignore the erasures that harm, gentrification, and cycles of extractive capitalism continue to produce. Our work honors those who came before us. We acknowledge the ancestral and cultural lineages that inform our practices. Future Prairie pays artists who sustain traditions of craft, making, art, and culture despite displacement and erasure.
Art is a tool for survival, a way of making meaning, and a form of resistance. Future Prairie exists to support working-class artists who live with precarity yet continue to create. We believe that artists deserve fair pay, resources, and stability, not promises of exposure or the false choice between passion and survival.
We treat collaboration as a practice of shared care. Any partnerships we take on are rooted in reciprocity, transparency, and trust.
Art thrives in conditions of care. Our residencies, gatherings, and programs are designed to be intentional and sustainable. We are not attempting to grow at any cost. We believe in cycles of rest and renewal as much as production. Our events are small, curated, and rooted in community rather than spectacle.
We do not imagine the future of Oregon as a utopia for escape. We know we will need art to repair past harms. Our work is built in the cracks of a system that encourages competition and isolation. We insist on connection, responsibility, thoughtful mutual aid, and renewal. We are committed to finding money for time and space so artists here can shape a future worth living in and living for.
Art is a tool for survival, a way of making meaning, and a form of resistance. Future Prairie exists to support working-class artists who live with precarity yet continue to create. We believe that artists deserve fair pay, resources, and stability, not promises of exposure or the false choice between passion and survival.
We treat collaboration as a practice of shared care. Any partnerships we take on are rooted in reciprocity, transparency, and trust.
Art thrives in conditions of care. Our residencies, gatherings, and programs are designed to be intentional and sustainable. We are not attempting to grow at any cost. We believe in cycles of rest and renewal as much as production. Our events are small, curated, and rooted in community rather than spectacle.
We do not imagine the future of Oregon as a utopia for escape. We know we will need art to repair past harms. Our work is built in the cracks of a system that encourages competition and isolation. We insist on connection, responsibility, thoughtful mutual aid, and renewal. We are committed to finding money for time and space so artists here can shape a future worth living in and living for.
