(Photo courtesy of Scalehouse)
This year marks ten years of Bend Design — a celebration of creative community and future-forward thinking, now in a new location at OSU-Cascades. The conference will feature inspiring talks, workshops, and gatherings from diverse design fields, uniting artists, designers, and creative thinkers from Central Oregon and beyond.
Volunteers are the backbone of Bend Design. From welcoming attendees to supporting workshops, you help bring this event to life. Review the opportunities below and select the shifts that fit your schedule.
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On View in the Gallery: Kiel Fletcher
Don’t miss! Closes October 25
This body of work explores the slippery boundary between perception and awareness, between what we passively take in and what we consciously acknowledge. At the heart of this exhibition is the tension between listening and hearing, seeing and observing. The works ask: how do we define ourselves by what we choose to pay attention to, and what gets lost in the margins of our perception?
The work in this exhibition embraces abstraction as both a visual and auditory strategy to disrupt immediate recognition. Through layered textures, shifting forms, and ephemeral soundscapes, the works invite viewers to slow down and question their initial impressions. The interplay between sensory triggers, sounds without clear sources, and images without familiar anchors encourages a deeper engagement that mirrors the process of truly observing or deeply listening.
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Mark Your Calendar: Art History Talks
Join us for our Fall 2025 Art History Lecture Series led by Braden Engel, PhD. As a part of our Arts Education Program, Art Lab, this series invites members of the community who are interested in learning more about Art in relation to our collective past, present and future.
Fight the Hand That Feeds: Histories of Authoritarian Policy and Aesthetic Taste
Thursday, November 13
5:30pm // Refreshments served.
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On view in the Annex: J Long
For the Light Within explores the interplay between openness and protection — how we modulate our internal “apertures” in response to the world around us. We instinctively open and close ourselves, adjusting our emotional porosity depending on whether we feel safe or threatened. This negotiation between vulnerability and guardedness reveals the balance we maintain to protect our inner selves while remaining open to connection.