WASHINGTON (KTVZ) – Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley on Tuesday announced a federal investment totaling nearly $750,000 for the High Desert Museum in Bend, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and the Portland Art Museum.
“These iconic Oregon museums have been communicating our local history, culture and science for decades to benefit Oregonians and their visitors,” Wyden said. “They create programs that people from all over the world want to experience while spending money across Oregon. Education, entertainment and economic impact are a triple win for Oregonians.”
“Oregon’s museums help us connect with each other and expand our understanding of the world around us,” Merkley said. “These projects at the High Desert Museum, OMSI and the Portland Art Museum will help provide high-quality educational and cultural experiences for students, families and visitors.”
The High Desert Museum in Bend will use the $238,840 it is receiving from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to create a learning center that will host educational programs for students in grades 1-12, teachers, families and community groups designed to provide new understanding of the region, build community connections and inspire creativity.
“Our community continues to grow and the museum plans to expand to grow with it,” said Dana Whitelaw, executive director of the High Desert Museum. “The new learning center will enable new and expanded innovative programs and provide important additional space for school year and summer programs. We are very grateful to the Institute for Museum and Library Services for this incredible opportunity and to Oregon’s Senators for their support of the important work of the High Desert Museum.”
OMSI in Portland will use its $249,469 to partner with Project LEDO, a Portland-based community organization that promotes equity in science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM), to enhance the museum’s labs and learning spaces for educational youth programs.
“OMSI is incredibly grateful for this award from IMLS, whose ongoing support of museums has been instrumental in improving educational opportunities,” said Alexis Baghdadi, director of campus and museum engagement. “This grant will enable our educators to better reach and serve diverse communities while also placing those communities at the center of our STEAM experiences, a collaborative process that OMSI values and is critical to learner success.”
The Portland Art Museum will use its $250,000 to create a retrospective exhibition of modernist painter and printmaker Yoshida Chizuko, highlighting the artist’s contributions as an advocate for the promotion of female artists in the 1950s and 1960s.
“An exploration of Yoshida Chizuko’s creative, luminous work across the long arc of her six-decade career has been overdue for some time. I look forward to people getting to know this important 20th-century artist and learning her story, which invites us to think more broadly about the history of international printmaking, modern art, and the challenges of pursuing a career as an artist in the 1950s and 1960s,” said Dr. Jeannie Kenmotsu, the Portland Art Museum’s Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art. “We are grateful for the support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides critical support for groundbreaking research and programs that open new doors to our understanding of art and culture.”
