Portland Museum is hosting A Secret History of American River People, a participatory art installation led by California-based artist Wes Modes. Part art exhibition, part social history project, A Secret History is a contemporary artwork highlighting the project’s rich findings of oral histories, photographs, artifacts, and video – all of which are collected from epic river voyages aboard a recreated 1940s-era shantyboat. Overall, the project seeks to examine basic river ecology and the issues facing current river communities while preserving the endangered history of people who have long lived on and adjacent to the river. Modes particularly seeks out the communities that are not represented in the dominant historical narrative, including people of color, women, working-class, and impoverished people.

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