Artists Archive
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Founded in 2020, Elbow Room is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community art studio and gallery dedicated to supporting artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities. More than 30 participating artists visit Elbow Room’s SE Portland studio (and satellite community art programming) each week to develop their creative practice, experiment with new materials, cultivate their portfolio of finished artwork, and to build community through friendship and collaboration. Elbow Room provides art materials and mentorship in painting, drawing, creative writing, sewing, digital media/video, music, hand tool woodworking, ceramics, and many other forms of art making. Participating artists pay no out-of-pocket expenses for materials or studio access, and they have opportunities to show and sell their work through Elbow Room’s gallery and through Elbow Room’s efforts to network with other contemporary art spaces.
Elbow Room and PICA have fostered an ongoing community partnership since 2022. Through weekly studio arts programs hosted by PICA, Elbow Room artists have access to PICA’s library of art books for inspiration and immersion into contemporary art, and can work with a wide range of artistic media in PICA’s Resource Room.
Learn moreEmily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. Originally from Alaska, she is currently based in Minneapolis. Since 1998 she has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as installations, engaging audiences within and through a space and environment—interacting with a place's architecture, history, and role in community. Her work is currently supported by Creative Capital, Map Fund, a Joyce Award and The Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts. Emily is a 2013 Institute for Advanced Study Fellow at the University of Minnesota, a 2012 Headlands Center for the Arts and MacDowell Artist in Residence, a Native Arts and Cultures Fellow (2011), a MANCC Choreographer Fellow (2009/2010/2012), a MAP Fund Grant recipient (2009/2010/2012/2013), and McKnight Fellow (2009). She received a 2012 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Outstanding Performance for her work, The Thank-you Bar, at New York Live Arts. Her current work, Niicugni, is touring to Florida State University/MANCC/Seven Days of Opening Nights, Coil Festival/PS122/Baryshnikov Arts Center (NYC), Redfern Arts Center at Keene State (NH), Arizona State University, Tigertail (Miami), Northrop Auditorium (MN), PICA (Portland, OR) and Bunnell Street Gallery (AK).
Selected Press
"Shedding Light on the Last Frontier," Gia Kourlas, The New York Times, January 4, 2013.
"Emily Johnson in Conversation with Ain Gordon," Movement Research Critical Correspondance, January 9, 2013.
Call & Response: Spandex and Basketballs, Emily Johnson, Mental Contagion, July/August 2008.
Learn moreEmily Jones and Hannah Krafcik make performances and facilitate movement practices together. They are white settlers residing on the unceded lands of the Cowlitz, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Clackamas, and many other Tribes, also known today as Portland, OR. Hannah (they/them) is a neurodivergent dancer and writer. Emily (she/they) is a dancer, movement educator, and bodyworker. The artists’ long-standing collaboration is driven by considering how power dynamics impact their body/minds and behaviors.
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