November 2025 First Thursday at PNCA + North Park Blocks!

Join us in the North Park Blocks for exhibition openings, music, refreshments and community!

The Center for Contemporary Art & Culture at Pacific Northwest College of Art is excited to invite the public to the November First Thursday Art Walk in the North Park Blocks for exhibition openings, community, and refreshments!

Welcoming our neighbors from near and far, First Thursdays in the North Park Blocks are an opportunity to come together in celebration of art, joy and community. First Thursdays are a vital part of the cultural ecosystem of Portland. For decades, these monthly events have been a highlight of nightlife in the Pearl District and North Park Blocks, increasing cultural connection and retail activation downtown.

Featured This Month:

511 CCAC Gallery:
SLAY THE GOBLIN!!! - Cameron A. Granger

Asolo exhibition by Queens, NY - based artist Cameron Granger. Using the framework of fictional roleplaying games as a tool to analyze contemporary culture, SLAY THE GOBLIN!!! features works ranging in media, including video, serigraphs, installation, and a community gaming room.

Atrium:
Argyle The Art of Sparkling: 10 years

Created by Argyle Winery to support PNCA students. Each year, three PNCA student artists are selected to receive the Argyle scholarship. The artist create a piece of work that is then turned into labels for the Art of Sparkling 3-bottle set. Come enjoy some bubbles and see what the students have created!

Design Corridor:
Paper Son’s Passage - VR Interactive Experience - Ran Sheng

Paper Son's Passage is a VR experience that places viewers inside a detention cell from the Chinese Exclusion Act era, transforming historical space into surreal, alienating architecture. Drawing from a 1903 immigration archive of a fifteen-year-old Chinese boy, Gee Fook, the work blurs documentation and imagination, inviting viewers to inhabit the liminal territory between belonging and exclusion. Through embodied exploration, it reveals how the past haunts the present in forms both strange and familiar.

Mediatheque:
Animation by Laura Camila Medina and PNCA students.

Holt Project Space:
i feel like i’ve lost something tonight. - Lyz Rowe

Commons Gallery:
Big Camera Show - Curated by Sarah Meadows, riel sturchio, and Thalassa Raasch

Ed Cauduro and Dane Nelson Collection Studies Lab:
Someone Once Told Me the Grass is Much Greener - Diego Morales-Portillo

157 Gallery:
Matter Matter/s - Mallary Wilson

B10 Gallery:
digital sea - Jacob Hogan

Neighborhood Partners Include:

Adams and Ollman

Augen Gallery

The BLACK Gallery + Don't Shoot PDX Annex

Blackfish Gallery

Blue Sky Gallery, Oregon Center for Photographic Arts

Elizabeth Leach Gallery

Froelick Gallery

LANDDD

Laura Vincent Design and Gallery

Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC)

Stelo Arts

Waterstone Gallery

The Writer’s Block

and more!

Free & Open to the Public!