We Were All Living a Dream

Downtown

When

Apr. 29, 2025–Mar. 29, 2026

Days Vary, Times vary

Cost: $0 - $14

Where

Oregon Historical Society

1200 SW Park Ave
Portland, OR 97205

The following description was submitted by the event organizer.

“We Were All Living a Dream”: Reflections on Twentieth-Century Lesbian Feminism through the Photography of Donna Pollach
During the early 1970s, artist and photographer Donna Pollach found community among the feminist and lesbian women of Portland. For over thirty years, she captured intimate moments among women as they worked together to deconstruct and redefine conventional ideas and expectations of womanhood, family, motherhood, and relationships. Her work explores the often-complex relationships between traditional and chosen families and highlights the central role of activism in her life, photographing anti-war protests, women’s liberation meetings, and gay-rights marches.

For many women of this era, choosing to be in a lesbian relationship involved sacrifice, as they risked being disowned by their biological families, workplace discrimination, and a legal system that frequently revoked custody of their children. The many forms of family within the lesbian community were a consistent theme in Pollach’s photography, and she used her portraits of lesbian women and their families to challenge nationwide narratives aimed at reversing the slow progress on civil rights protections for sexual minorities.

Writing about Pollach’s work after her death, fellow activist Ellen Goldberg noted: “We were all living a dream, and Donna knew dreams. Perhaps that accounts for the quality in Donna’s imagery, that blend of gritty-real people doing almost surreal ground-breaking that reflected our lesbian community in that moment of history.” Pollach’s photography highlights the dreams of her community, her chosen family, and provides insight into a generation of women forged out of the fight for women’s rights and gay liberation.