From the Benton County Historical Society, and starting Thursday, An Unfinished Country, which borrows its title from James Baldwin’s enduring challenge to confront the American past with honesty. The Corvallis Museum exhibit suggests that democracy is sustained through a willingness to reexamine the stories we tell about ourselves. It invites viewers to see the museum not as a place where history is settled, but as a space where it is continually questioned, expanded, and renewed.
Among Historic Society’s vast museum collections is an extraordinary group of historic American flags spanning pre-Civil War through the twentieth century and more than 65,000 historic photographs, many of which have never been publicly displayed. These objects are often understood as records of regional pride and progress. Yet museum collections are not neutral. They are shaped by power, authorship, and omission. Building on the understanding that museum collections are continually reinterpreted, An Unfinished Country invites three contemporary artists into an ongoing dialogue with the historical record.
Hawaii-based artist Jeremy Dean’s Rended Flag series destabilizes the symbolism of the American flag, painstakingly unraveling and reweaving each flag, thread by thread, to reveal its fragility as a national emblem. Presented together for the first time, major works from the past decade trace Dean’s slow, meticulous process through which he transforms political urgency into sustained reflection, advancing a hopeful vision of democracy as an unfinished project.
Portland-based photographer Heather Cantrell’s newly commissioned project, Study in Portraiture: Corvallis Museum, places the museum’s photography collection in dialogue with a new series of community portraits. Set against the backdrop of the BCHS Johnson Collections Center in Philomath, each intentionally staged, large-scale portrait depicts an individual whose life or work contributes to the cultural fabric of Benton County. Accompanied by a first-person reflection, each portrait positions individual voice and lived experience as essential forms of historical record.
Joining this dialogue is Portland-based Anis Mojgani, former Oregon Poet Laureate, whose practice bridges performance, literature, and visual art. Mojgani transforms the museum’s lobby floor and grand stairway with his new site-specific installation, The River, weaving poetry into the architecture itself. As the first contemporary artwork conceived specifically for the lobby since the museum’s opening, the installation expands the exhibition beyond the galleries, inviting visitors to move through language before entering the galleries.
Together, these three artists establish a layered framework that moves between national narrative, regional archive, and lived experience. By pairing historic materials with contemporary artistic practices, the exhibition expands the boundaries of what constitutes historical record. It invites viewers to reconsider familiar objects not as settled artifacts, but as participants in an ongoing negotiation over memory, visibility and belonging.
About the Curator
William Morrow is an independent curator and consultant based in Portland, Oregon. He is recognized for curating international contemporary art programs and for his expertise in shaping, stewarding, and interpreting major collections. His commitment to fostering visionary artistic practices, interrogating complex histories, and inspiring diverse audiences is the cornerstone of his curatorial practice. He has held curatorial and leadership positions at 21c Museum, Denver Art Museum, Newcomb Art Museum, and the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, and currently serves as Curator-at-Large for the San Juan Islands Museum of Art.
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