Arts & Culture

What happens when water, a vital element of life on earth, is privatized and therefore turned into a source of competition and monetary gain?

This question is answered in Irene Salina’s award-winning documentary, Flow: For the Love of Water (2008), which will be screened by the Women’s Resource Center Monday, Nov. 28, to celebrate Social Sustainability Month.

A gripping and unsettling account of the growing urgency of water politics, the film interviews activists and scientists in several fields to send a message of warning and of hope.

The first annual Informative Collaboration between Portland State’s Graphic Design Center and the Friends of Graphic Design took place in the form of a workshop Nov. 9. Within the walls of the Art Building that evening, 11 students gathered to learn, design and innovate.

Stephen Ebert, a senior and president of the Graphic Design Center, ran the workshop, which began with his demonstration on how to make a perfectly symmetrical shape in Adobe Illustrator, and move lines so that they’re in harmony with each other. He also played a slideshow, which showcased work from famous graphic designers.

The Portland State Institute for Asian Studies and the Adult Korean Adoptees of Portland will present the film Wedding Palace Saturday, Nov. 19 at the PSU Recreation Center. Two of the film’s actors, Joy Omanski and Nancy J. Lee, will answer questions after the screening.

Wedding Palace follows L.A. advertising executive Jason Kim (Brian Tee), as he attempts to find a wife before his 30th birthday. An ancient family curse mandates that Jason get married before he turns 30—or else he loses his life.

Portland State’s Japanese Student Society hosts its biggest event of the year, Japan Night, Tuesday, Nov. 22. The entirely student-run celebration of Japanese culture will include dinner and performances throughout the evening.

“Japan Night is a yearly event, and it’s the biggest event JSS puts on,” said Akira Hasegawa, one of the lead organizers of the celebration. “It brings the Japanese culture to the public and makes it more accessible.”

The Roseland Theater will be enveloped in a halo of smoke Monday, Nov. 21, as the visionary rockers of Kyuss play to an audience that, in all likelihood, became fans of the band only after it disbanded.

Modern guitar rock owes much to Kyuss. The band’s driving, riff-based attack has permeated all musical genres that followed its inception, such as grunge, late ’90s throwback garage rock and, most notably, today’s stoner metal bands. Most people who listen to Kyuss also listen to a subset of other bands—most of which either spawned from Kyuss or came into being as a result of their records.

Dr. Omar Reda, assistant professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University, will discuss his recent visit to Libya Friday, Nov. 18, as part of the Portland State Middle East Studies Center’s “Lunch & Learn” series.

“I’m going to talk about the Arab Spring and focus mainly from a psychosocial aspect. I want to talk briefly about the Libyan people’s struggle and the challenges that face them now that the regime is over,” Reda said. “Most likely they will need lots of work for that country to recover.”



Portland State Percussion Ensemble

“Many percussionists spend a lot of time at the back of the orchestra, following a conductor and playing accompanying parts to other sections of the orchestra,” said Jeffery Peyton, acting director of the percussion studies program at Portland State. “In percussion ensemble, these players get the opportunity to play the melodic parts.”

This Sunday, the Portland State Percussion Ensemble gets to shine. They will play a range of pieces, from 18th century Handel to 1960s John Cage and Lou Harrison.

Artwork takes a different approach to geology in the foreGround exhibition in Portland State’s Littman Gallery, located on the second floor of Smith Memorial Student Union.

Guest curator Jeff Jahn wanted to challenge the other galleries in the city with an exhibition that was more than the traditional landscapes, trees and rain.

“I wanted to do something that’s relevant,” Jahn said. “This is a landscape show with no proper landscape in it. It’s about material and cognition, the way we process the landscape and how it lives in our memory.”

“How do we create a world where economies are stable and can grow?” Martin Hart-Landsberg asked.

The question was rhetorical, and the quiet authority in his tone suggested that he’d long pondered the answer. “One thing that’s important to learn is that countries like Korea did prosper, and they transformed themselves economically, not through relying on the market, but through state planning,” Hart-Landsberg said.

The topic of conversation was the South Korean economy. As a professor of economics at Lewis and Clark College and an adjunct researcher at Gyeongsang National University’s Institute for Social Sciences in South Korea, Hart-Landsberg has spent years studying the subject.