07/23/2026
The University of Southern Maine’s 2026 Artist-in-Residence is Peter Bruun. His "Even As We Grieve" project explores how human connection helps us endure and transform experiences of pain, loss, and crisis. Prior to this exhibition, Bruun collaborated with eight organizations centered on care for people navigating some of life’s most difficult times.
Addiction is not unique among serious health challenges, but few so thoroughly disrupt every dimension of a life due to the associated stigma and the harm its behaviors bring. Intimately familiar with that disruption, Bruun sought out organizations supporting those affected by substance use disorder, or susceptible to it, as partners in Even As We Grieve. Portland Recovery Community Center (PRCC) provides peer support and resources for those in or pursuing recovery.
Niki’s artwork shows three overlapping shapes, each with its own complex pattern, yet together they sing, like the recovery community she relishes at PRCC. The gold background represents the value of recovery: “Worth its weight in gold.” A staff member at PRCC, Niki highlights recovery’s beauty, hope, and diversity, with imagery that evokes growth and the flowering of recovery within a supportive community.
Many who arrive at these organizations have felt judged and cast aside, their lives undone by chaos. What they find is restoration and belonging, and often the desire to give back. These organizations prove, again and again, that reaching toward someone in despair can return them — and through them, others — to the world.
Don't miss "Even As We Grieve," on view at the Crewe Center for the Arts through July 31. Special thanks to the Onion Foundation, who supported this project's community outreach.
portlandrecoverycommunityctr bruunstudios
