Déy Rivers is agender, non-conforming Black american navigating mental health challenges and the bodily manifestations thereof. They are a storyteller, visual artist, writer, poet, performer, & educator residing on Turtle Island. The Earth, botanical motifs, ancestors, language, and collective dreaming is a short list of what inspires their work. Déy especially enjoys creating art, writing, guiding/educating, and learning in community. They request people use creative practices in reference to their artistry and refuses the term “multi-disciplinary”.
They have a degree in Fine Arts, an educational background in trauma-responsive care, mental health advocacy, Peer Support training, and gender & queer studies in historic and current contexts.
CV
Grants and Awards:
2025 | Portland Institute of Contemporary Art Precipice Fund Grant
2021 | Regional Arts and Culture Council Make|Learn|Build Grant
2020 | Portland Art Museum Re:Imagine Grant
Selected Readings & Performances:
2025 | Feasting on Words the Reading, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA), OR
2025 | DIALOGUES WITH TREES: a poem, A De-Canon Project, Portland Poetry Confluence, OR
2025 | DOOMTEENTH: An Afro-Futurist Fairy Tale, family friendly collaborative art experience, Black Futures Farm, OR
2025 | Fractals: A QT Poetry Reading, Multnomah Arts Center, Portland OR
2023 | Periplus Fellows Reading #2, Unnamable Books, Brooklyn, NY
2022 | “another way to build worlds”, Headwaters Theater, Portland OR
2022 | Pop-up BIPOC Reading, Portland Art Museum, Portland Book Festival
2020 | Ooligan Press Oregon Writers of Color Spring Showcase
Residencies:
2020-2025 | Literary Arts: Writers in the Schools Teaching Residency
2023 | Caldera: Artist in Residence, Caldera Arts, Sisters OR
Selected Exhibitions & Commissions:
2025 | Altered Thread, [things/found] Atelier & Gallery, Portland OR
2019 | Goddex, Public Mural, Portland Guitar Repair, Montavilla Neighborhood, OR
Community Teaching:
2025 | Corporeal Writing, Spring Virtual workshops
Speculative Fiction: co-creating worlds based in global majority storytelling traditions
Visual Poetics: erasure, blackout, redaction, and shape poems using political and emotionally charged documents
2020-2025 | Literary Arts, Writer in the Schools, Portland OR
Many Nations Academy, Alliance HS, Grant HS, McDaniels HS, Roosevelt HS, Gresham HS
2024 | Free Family Saturday, Surrealist Collaging, Five Oaks Museum, OR
2021 - 2022 | Ekphrastic Poetry for Middle Grade, Portland Book Festival
2019-2020 | Elementary and Middle School Studio Art Classes, Vibe of Portland
2019 | Free Family Saturday, Collage Workshop, Five Oaks Museum, OR