Sometimes artist "networking" events are a nightmare. You stand in a corner holding a warm seltzer, someone asks "so what do you do," and you either undersell yourself into oblivion or oversell yourself so hard you have to leave and go lie down! 

So on March 5, we threw that whole format in the river and tried something else.

The Art of Meeting, also nicknamed Speed Friending, took over the upstairs dance studio at Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center for one glorious two-hour experiment in "what if meeting people didn't feel like a job interview." Free to attend for all! 

Sponsored by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and our friends at Friends of IFCC. 

Hosted by Onry, alongside Saeeda Wright and Jax Ko, three LGBTQIA+ Oregon-based working-class artists, who we paid to dream this whole night up and run it.

Back at the very end of 2024, we ran a community survey, and it told us something we weren't thrilled to hear but weren't exactly shocked by either…which is that a lot of you were still lonely. Post-pandemic isolation had settled in and stayed, and a bunch of the artists in our community told us that making new friends as an adult had gotten scary and hard. So Art of Meeting wasn't a random cute idea we had one weekend. We heard community say "we need each other and we don't know how to find each other," and we wanted an evening to begin to address that. 

As people walked in, we had words and themes posted around the room, things like excited, overwhelmed, nervous, go with the flow, plus a few elemental ones like fire, water, earth, and heart.  

Then came a short, no-nonsense primer on how to talk about your own work or introduce yourself and what you're working on.  

From there, everybody circled up for quick, low-pressure introductions and a few rounds of small-group guided group chat prompts so nobody had to invent small talk out of thin air. Questions ranged from the practical ("what are you actively working on right now") to the delightfully big ("if everything went well for you creatively this year, what would be different by 2030?"). We had one rule that made the whole night feel safer for marginalized artists: if you wanted to stay in touch with someone, you offered your own contact info. You didn't ask for theirs. Nobody had to say no to anybody! Everybody stayed in control of what they shared. 

Our host, Saeeda Wright, is a successful singer who has attended dozens of formal networking events that left her feeling anxious and unseen. This is why she and Onry wanted to build the fix. She's credited as co-creator of the concept, and every artist who's ever frozen up at a mixer should come to one of her upcoming shows on Alberta and buy her a drink.

​

Over two nights, February 14 and 15, we packed into Deep Waters Art Studio up in Albina (North Portland) and turned it into the very first Oregon Trans Film Festival.

~75 of you showed up, tickets in hand, ready to watch transgender and transsexual filmmakers' art. This was a laying down festival meaning only half the room was for couches and chairs, and the other half was for watching from blankets, massive pillow forts, and yoga mats spread all over the cozy warm wooden floors. 
 
We think more events should work like this...

We screened seven short films, and every single one had a trans writer, director, or lead behind it.

Front and center: A New Creation Story, five glorious minutes from the Black Trans Prayer Book collective, blending animation and poetry into a Black trans cosmology of how the universe came to be.

Not Exactly Strangers brought the heat and the heart. At Home paired a 29-year-old trans musician with a 79-year-old lesbian archivist and made us all a little weepy about chosen family. Okay? had a doctor and a patient finding each other through grief. Yeah No Yeah wandered three ex-lovers through Chicago bird sanctuariess. Death's Door personified Death as a gamer friend. Dani showed us a solo portrait of a young trans person finding their way through pandemic isolation.

Another nine films streamed online afterward for a full month, including a claymation dinosaur diagnosed with "Heterosexual Disease" (obsessed), a Portland-shot trans music video, and a watercolor-animated meditation on transition.

Thanks to Portland Events and Film Office for backing this event, and a shoutout to The Property Weirdos, our sponsors from the gay realtor world, for believing in trans film enough to help pay for popcorn! 

Future Prairie Founder Liam Whitworth put it best on the mic that night: "I'm excited to celebrate trans artists telling their own stories in a year when our stories are being deleted, distorted, and invalidated." That's the reason this festival exists.

We recently had to review some metrics for a grant application, and we wanted to make sure we had accurate information. We dug into the archive of everyone we've worked with since our founding in January 2018, and we wanted to share these results; we thought they were interesting. 

Across cis, trans, and nonbinary identities, apparently Future Prairie has a whole lotta she/hers! ​

​

Our Future Prairie friends and family recently met up at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center to host a discussion on Oregon’s arts funding debate. Here are some of our takeaways. 

In 2014, the Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon (CACO) held a statewide planning event called the Big Think. The goal was to better understand how the organization could advocate for arts, culture, heritage, and humanities across Oregon.
More than a decade later, the same questions are still urgent. From September through December 2025, CACO returned to this work through a new process called the Big Re/Think. The project was funded by the Cultural Advocacy Coalition Foundation and was designed to help shape arts advocacy in advance of the 2027 Oregon legislative session. The process included interviews with policymakers and leaders from arts organizations, a statewide survey, a virtual gathering, and six in person meetings held across different regions of Oregon.

For artists across the state, especially LGBTQIA+ artists from working class backgrounds, the conversation could not be more important. Many queer artists in Oregon are already building culture from the margins. They are organizing shows in small venues, curating community events, running DIY galleries, hosting open mics, making podcasts, teaching workshops, and supporting each other through informal networks of care. Yet the funding systems that are supposed to support the arts often do not reach these artists at all.

One major issue is that the arts sector in Oregon does not speak with one clear voice about its value. Across the state, people describe arts, culture, heritage, and humanities in very different ways. Some talk about tourism and economic development. Others focus on education or community identity. Still others see art as a form of civic engagement or social change. When the sector cannot clearly explain its shared value, it becomes harder to make a strong case for funding. For small artist led projects, especially those outside traditional institutions, this lack of clarity can mean fewer opportunities and less support.

Another major issue is that arts and culture are still widely undervalued in statewide policy conversations. When lawmakers talk about major challenges facing Oregon, the focus is usually on housing, healthcare, transportation, and climate. These issues are critical, but arts and culture are often treated as optional rather than essential. For LGBTQIA+ artists, this disconnect can be especially painful. Art is our survival tool. It is how communities document their stories, process trauma, imagine different futures, and build belonging in a world that has often excluded them. Queer artists in Oregon have been doing this work for generations. But too often they are doing it without stable financial support. 

Funding was one of the most urgent concerns raised during the Big Re/Think process. Across the state, organizations reported that they are struggling to cover basic operating costs. Smaller nonprofits and artist led groups are particularly vulnerable. Many rely on volunteers, short term project grants, or unpaid labor just to keep their programs running. For working class artists, this creates a painful reality. The people producing some of the most innovative cultural work in Oregon are often the least financially supported. This problem becomes even more visible when you look at who has historically had access to funding. Larger institutions with professional grant writers and development staff tend to secure the majority of resources. Meanwhile, grassroots groups led by queer artists, artists of color, disabled artists, and rural artists often struggle to navigate the system.

Participants in the Big Re/Think process also emphasized the need for stronger community involvement in funding decisions. Oregon already has a network of 45 county and tribal Cultural Coalitions connected through the Oregon Cultural Trust. These coalitions help distribute some cultural funding at the local level. Many people believe these groups could play a bigger role in shaping how resources are allocated in the future. Local communities often have a much clearer understanding of which artists and organizations are doing meaningful work on the ground. For LGBTQIA+ artists in smaller towns or rural regions, this could be especially important. Many queer artists outside Portland have limited access to statewide funding networks, even though they are building vital cultural spaces in their own communities.

Another issue raised during the process is that many arts organizations simply do not have enough infrastructure to support their work. Small groups often struggle to handle everyday responsibilities such as marketing, fundraising, donor management, human resources, and financial reporting. These tasks take time, expertise, and administrative capacity that many grassroots organizations simply do not have. Building shared services or statewide support systems could help smaller organizations operate more sustainably and free artists to focus on the creative work that actually builds culture.

Participants acknowledged that there is not yet agreement about how new funding should be used. Some people want to prioritize major institutions that attract tourism and national attention. Others believe the focus should be on community based arts, independent artists, and smaller organizations that are directly embedded in local neighborhoods. This debate is healthy. It reflects a sector that is actively trying to figure out what kind of cultural future Oregon wants to build.

As we prepare an advocacy strategy for the 2027 legislative session, four major questions remain: 

1. How can Oregon create a more stable statewide funding system for arts and culture?
2. Should the coalition advocate for specific funding priorities, and if so which ones?
3. How can arts organizations partner with other sectors, such as tourism, to strengthen the case for public investment?
4. How can communities themselves stay involved in shaping funding decisions?

These questions determine whether our artists can afford to stay in Oregon. They affect whether grassroots cultural spaces can survive. They influence whether our stories continue to be told by the communities who live them. One clear takeaway from the Big Re/Think process is that people across the sector want these conversations to continue. For artists, organizers, and cultural workers across Oregon, the next few years will be a chance to push for a more equitable and sustainable arts ecosystem. The future of Oregon’s cultural policy must include queer culture, community storytelling, and grassroots art as essential to Oregon’s cultural life.

From March 8 through 15, the Future Prairie fam is going off to another EPIC residency during Sou'wester Arts Week at The Sou'wester Lodge in Seaview, Washington!

Future Prairie​ Founder Liam Whitworth will perform and read from his novel-in-progress at the historic Chinook School. Brittany will lead a guided mycology nature walk. The week closes with an exhibition built around work from kids at Wave Preschool.