Agency and the Image
A Two-Day Photography Symposium
Presented by Portland Community College in partnership with Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts
Dates:
Day 1: Friday, October 10, 2025 | 10:30 AM – 5:00 PM | PCC Southeast Campus
Day 2: Saturday, October 11, 2025 | 10:30 AM – 4:00 PM | PCC Cascade Campus
Overview
Agency and the Image brings together artists, scholars, and community members to explore photography’s histories, practices, and futures. The symposium honors Blue Sky’s 50 years of advancing contemporary photography.
The program includes:
Workshops on artist statements, portfolio development, digital tools, and tintype making
Panel discussions on photography’s role in community, identity, and experimental practices
A keynote with Blue Sky co-founder Chris Rauschenberg and Executive Director Kristin Solomon
An interactive on-site Camera Obscura installation
Registration: $25 per person.
Free Blue Sky student membership for all student registrants.
Financial assistance available (contact: bluesky@blueskygallery.org).
The first event each day is free to the public.
Schedule
Day 1: Friday, October 10 – PCC Southeast Campus
10:30 – 11:10 AM | Welcome / Introduction / History (Free to the Public)
11:10 – 11:30 AM | Break
11:30 – 12:15 PM | Panel: Community & Identity
12:15 – 1:00 PM | Lunch Break
1:00 – 2:15 PM | Workshop: Artist Statement
2:15 – 5:00 PM | Workshop: Wet Plate Photography
Day 2: Saturday, October 11 – PCC Cascade Campus
10:30 – 11:10 AM | Camera Obscura (Free to the Public)
11:10 – 11:30 AM | Break
11:30 – 12:15 PM | Panel: Materials & Experimentation
12:15 – 1:00 PM | Lunch Break
1:00 – 2:15 PM | Workshop: Portfolio Development
2:15 – 4:00 PM | Workshop: Digital Tools
Bios
Kristin Solomon is the Executive Director of Blue Sky Gallery, the Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts. Born and raised in New York. She holds a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts and a Masters in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute. She has over 20 years experience in arts administration with a concentration in strategic planning, fundraising, and marketing. Over her career, she has helped many artists and non-profits find their unique creative edge and build sustainable business practices through one-on-one coaching sessions, workshops, retreats, and online courses through her virtual platform THINK WITH YOUR HEART INSTITUTE ONLINE. Kristin has served on the Boards of the Portland Art Dealers Association, Portland Open Studios, Creative Arts Community, and the Menucha Retreat and Conference Center.
Kim Manchester (they/them) is an artist, educator & photographer who relocated to the Pacific Northwest twenty-odd years ago and has been making images that explore the ways in which pattern, light, color and value interact in the world around them. The idea of ‘Home’ and making images inside domestic and residential environments is a recurring theme in their work as is the interplay of light, time and state of mind as they move through those places. Kim has been teaching Photography at Portland Community College since 2006 and has had the privilege to teach PCC students abroad every other summer in Prague, Czechia. Their work as an educator strives to empower students through using experiential learning opportunities, encouraging experimentation and reflection and through a curriculum that seeks to de-colonize photography’s culture of singular authorship, emphasizing that every photograph is a collaborative act.
David Torres is an New Media Artist and Co – Faculty Department Chair for PCC’s Casacde Campus. Born in West Palm Beach, FL, David Torres is interested in the history of stories where the unseen forces of morality are at work. The PTSD factor embedded in African American History has drawn Torres to the idea of the “hero” as an empathic ideal for people to aspire to. Torres explores the illusion and delusional discussions that surround the complexities of class dynamics within American culture. As a way of investigating these dynamics Torres created “Riakman”, an alter-ego, designed under the influences of 1990’s anime, video games, and his father’s middle school drawings. Riakman’s birth later expanded into the Sunkeepers, a race of warriors fueled by the cosmic power of the sun! Through worldbuilding and storytelling, Torres re-links pathways between high art and popular culture as a multimedia artist. Through Sunkeepers, Torres blends the handicraft formats of painting, drawing, and sculpture with the technocraft formats of 3-D modeling, filmmaking, and A.I to create video animations.
Recent exhibitions include Hollywood Theatre, AfterTime Collective, Northview Gallery, Helzer Gallery, Black Fish Gallery and Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery. Torres has attended fellowships at Oxbow School of Arts, Marie Waslh Sharpe and most recently Wheaton College’s Visiting Artist Program.