TERRAIN

Terrain is a community-driven environmentally centered land art experience of site-specific artistic responses to the surrounding landscape and its history. Terrain emerged from a project called Terra Incognita that was presented at The Verdancy Project in Portland in 2023. Terrain is designed to be presented at different locales, asking invited artists–through a residency-style approach– to engage in durational place-based research and to create new temporary artworks that reflect the history, ecology, & socio-economics of the site.

In 2025, Terrain artists were prompted by the dynamic history of what lies around and beneath Building 5. This site used to be home of Guild's Lake and wetlands up to the bank of the Willamette River, and where Terrain is unfolded.

Terrain 2025 was co-curated by Kendra Roberts, Clarissa Stephens, and Tammy Jo Wilson.

Roberts is an independent artist and curator and the founder of Terra Incognita. Currently, she serves as the director of public engagement at Blackfish Gallery and is the president of the Portland Art Dealers Association.

Stephens is a studio artist and independent curator. Her practice and research explores a sense of place, wonder and relationship to the natural landscape. Stephens’s work is influenced by mapping, navigation, historical research, weather patterns and extreme natural environments.

Wilson is a studio artist and independent curator. She co-founded Art in Oregon 2018. Wilson serves as Ambassador for the Portland Art Museum Black Art & Experiences Initiative and Visual Arts and Technology Program Manager at Lewis and Clark College. From 2023-2026 she served as Director of Exhibits & Programming for Bush House Museum in Salem, OR.

2025 Participating Artists: Intisar Abioto, Midnight Abioto, Lauren Carrera, Rose Covert, Santigie Fofana-Dura, Sapata Fofana-Dura, Pamela Hadley, Erinn Kathryn, Daniela Naomi Molnar, Jocelyn Rice, Philip A. Robinson, Jr., Clairissa Stephens, Amanda Triplett, Alice Christine Walker, and Beth Wilson.

Learn more about Terrain here.‍ ‍

Follow Terrain on Instagram.

photos by Mario Gallucci