Prize-winning architecture student takes on houselessness with art

Plenty of people have ideas about how to solve the homelessness crisis in Portland.

Only one of them involves a storytelling kiosk mounted on an art-covered bicycle.

Such a contraption is a key piece of Cheryl Leontina’s project “Voices from under the Bridges,” which will help bridge the divide between housed and unhoused people in our community through the sharing of personal stories.

Leontina, a Master’s of Architecture candidate at Portland State, was awarded the $10,000 Andries Deinum Prize for Visionaries and Provocateurs to support her project. The prize is the largest cash award in the PSU College of the Arts, given to a student who is committed to expanding public dialogue via creative artistic expression, original research or an innovative project highlighting the value of art in the 21st century. Leontina will receive the prize at the College of the Arts Graduation Celebration on June 15. 

The prize is named for the late film educator and PSU professor Andries Deinum (1918-1995), who transformed Portland’s cultural and intellectual landscape through his innovative use of film in education. The prize was established with gifts from devoted former students, colleagues and others inspired by Deinum’s humanist values.

Stories and solutions

Leontina will use the story-collecting bike, which she envisions as “a hybrid between an ice-cream cart and a flamboyant Burning Man bicycle,” to record the stories of houseless people along the downtown waterfront this summer. She’ll assemble the results into an exhibit for Design Week Portland next spring, where viewers will be invited to record their feelings and share ideas for solutions. The project will culminate in a fall exhibition featuring both the stories and the responses. 

Leontina hopes that “Voices from under the Bridges” will change public perceptions of homeless communities and defuse tensions between housed and unhoused neighbors. 

To execute the project, she’ll collaborate with the Village Coalition, a group of housing activists led by houseless and formerly houseless people, who will oversee the project and help design, build and launch the storytelling bike. Leontina will also use part of the prize award to compensate the houseless people who offer their stories. 

A personal struggle

Leontina is passionate about architecture’s potential to provide creative new solutions for shelters that allow marginalized populations to form sustainable, self-governing communities. Her master’s thesis is on housing equity and community building. In addition, she has faced her own struggles with housing, even as she’s been working toward her graduate degree. 

After designing and building a horse shelter with her sister in rural Salem, Leontina lived in the structure’s loft while designing and building a 12’x 12’ cottage using all donated materials. 

“I was lucky because I had family close by who helped, but not everyone has a safety net,” she says. She went on to work with the School of Architecture's Center for Public Interest Design on the project that helped create tiny houses for Kenton Women’s Village in North Portland.  

“Living on that razor's edge while finishing my graduate thesis in architecture has been a challenge, but one that has given me deep empathy for others experiencing insecure housing,” Leontina says. “It has inspired me to seek paths for healing our fractured social infrastructure.”

The Deinum Prize jury was impressed by the way Leontina’s project combines art, design and outreach to address complex issues around houselessness. “Andries Deinum believed in art with a purpose, using his knowledge of filmmaking and media to ignite community conversations around the important issues of his day,” says Dr. Leroy Bynum, Jr., dean of the College of the Arts. “Cheryl’s project is a clear extension of Deinum’s legacy in Portland.” 

About Andries Deinum

Film educator Andries Deinum transformed Portland’s cultural and intellectual landscape through his innovative use of film in education. A pioneer in filmstudies, Deinum brought the discipline to Portland State, cofounding the Center for the Moving Image in 1969.  Deinum’s unique approach to teaching placed film at the heart of a liberal arts education.   Following the tradition of Vincent Van Gogh, whom he greatly admired, Deinum believed that “art is nothing at all unless it is equipment for living…unless it untangles our surrounding chaos for us, rather than adding to it.”  Hence his oft-cited dictum: “Art should stir people up, not mix them up.” 

As an individual who had seen the oppressive force of Nazi Germany in his native Friesland and confronted the Hollywood blacklist after he immigrated to the United States, Deinum placed high value on the role of the personal voice in art and public life.  Outspoken and often controversial, he used both film and public television to foster conversations around issues such as urban planning, minority rights and censorship. 

Active in both civic affairs and teaching, Deinum helped to guide PSU’s development as an urban university, spurring it to live up to its motto, “Let Knowledge Serve the City.”