Review by Lee Halvorsen •
Wieder’s intimate images and skilled story telling brings persistence, permanence, place, and people to life in Portland’s King School Park. Wieder spent several years photographing folks in the Park, people who return almost daily despite the tsunamis of neighborhood change over the years. Mitchell Jackson grew up in the community; his foreword provides historic and social context for a community that started as a Black neighborhood, veered into a troubled “hood,” and is now in a gentrification phase. Through all the years, all the changes, and all the generations, many people who grew up in the neighborhood still return, even if they’ve moved miles away. And some original residents remain. But that’s the wonder, it’s the Park that draws them back, gives them a sense of belonging, and makes conversation and relation the priorities. Where everyone knows your name.
Jackson’s foreword gives us a sense of community, of joy, anguish, smiles and smudges…this is a real place, with real people who want to stay connected despite miles and time…and the Park, well, the Park is the place where that magic happens. Wieder’s images are more than portraits; they are moments in the lives of the Park’s community. And the community is definitely brought to life in the pages of this book.
Wieder found the King School Park during COVID on a photo outing. He introduced himself to a group of Park regulars, he and his camera were accepted. As a white man in a Black community, he was keenly aware the images and stories he was recording were the stories of that community and its people and were gifts to him, not something he could take or capture. In fact, members of the community helped select the images for the book.
Over the years, Wieder became close friends with many of them, especially Fade and Karl. The relationships he established shine through in every image and throughout the book. Laughs, smiles, frowns, poses…all part of the hubbub, the life of the Park. His images start with Fade (Find and Destroy Everything) whose full-length pose is one of strength and heart. We reconnect with Fade several times in the book and see him laughing, drinking, and being serious with friends…when I turned each page, I always looked for him in the next spread. The same with Pastor Hardy who remembered the King School before Martin Luther King, Jr’s., assassination and the renaming of the school and the park. We meet him often as he celebrates, counsels, and offers care.
The black and white images are superbly composed and well made, the paper, 80# Titan Dull and the printing process offer the look and feel of having original darkroom images. Wieder’s compositional use of a large tone range emphasized the people, their expressions, and their interactions. The images brought me into the story, into the neighborhood, and offered me the chance to interact with the people.
That’s the wonder of this gem of a book, it’s so personal, so intimate, so real, I’m thankful to have met the stars of this real-life episode of King School Park, I smiled a lot. Gives me hope.
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Lee Halvorsen is assistant editor, writer and visual artist living in Virginia.
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We Will Not Be Removed: The People of King School Park by Alan Wieder
Artist: Alan Wieder living and working in Asheville, NC
Foreword: Mitchell S. Jackson
Copyright ©2025 by Alan Wieder
Publisher: Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission
Website for purchasing book. Oregon State University Press, also available in bookstores and 1-800-621-2736
Printed in the United States of America by Brown Printing
Binding: Hard Cover with Smyth-sewn binding, Bound by BindTech Roswell
Language: English
Hardcover 168 pages, 70 black and white images, 7.5 x 8.375 inches, ISBN 978-1-962645-44-7
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Articles and photographs published in the PhotoBook Journal may not be reproduced without the permission of the PhotoBook Journal staff and the photographer(s). All images, texts, and designs are under copyright by the authors and publishers.
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