What Makes a Place?
Community Gallery, May-June 2021
In Winter 2021, Portland State University students created imaginative graphic design approaches to interpreting the Five Oaks Historic Site.
Read More
Stories of place through the voices of its people.
Five Oaks Museum brings Washington County’s many histories to life through a wide range of exhibits that help our community learn and grow together. We work to preserve important objects and stories. We examine local history through multiple lenses. We celebrate the arts, creativity and curiosity. Through our Guest Curator program our exhibitions are built by people telling their own stories, and are developed to be cultural resources for the entire community.
Browse our current and past exhibitions below.
Featured Exhibition
DISplace
Our 2021 history & culture exhibition shines light on the widely unknown connection between Hawai‘i, the Pacific Northwest, and the communities that continue to flow between these two regions.
Ongoing Exhibitions
This IS Kalapuyan Land
An exhibition available online in perpetuity that questions how Native history is told, shares Tualatin Kalapuyan history from a contemporary Kalapuyan perspective, and features artworks by Indigenous descendants who are contributing to cultural survivance today.
Gender Euphoria: Contemporary Art Beyond the Binary
Our 2021 art exhibition celebrates images of gender euphoria and envisions a world that respects the diverse lived experiences of trans and genderqueer contemporary artists and their communities.
Community Gallery
The Community Gallery highlights exciting, ongoing work of students and educators in interpreting history, culture, and art.
Museum at (Our Place)
Museum at (Our Place) is an opportunity to bring an outdoor mini-exhibition to your school or neighborhood as a set of yard signs and learning resources.
M(OP) This IS Kalapuyan Land
Bring contemporary Indigenous art to your students or neighborhood while making a statement of land acknowledgement that this IS Kalapuyan land.
Read MoreUpcoming Exhibitions
Untouchable Artifacts
Exhibition Opening July 17, 2021
Untouchable Artifacts: A Virtual and Printed Exhibition on Indigenous Storytelling, History, and Resilience
Read MorePast Exhibitions
AgriCulture
September 2018 – June 2019
The stories in this exhibition tell about performing agricultural labor in the Tualatin Valley, in different times, with different crops, and under different social and political circumstances.
Read More
Timber in the Tualatin Valley
2016 – 2020
With many original artifacts on loan from local collector Bill Racine, this display aims to teach visitors about the history of logging in Washington County, from the first pioneers to railroading to gas powered engines.
Read More
Staff Show
January 2020
In this exhibition, the Five Oaks staff investigates the many ways in which the Five Oaks name, historic site, and its potential resonates within each of us working at the museum today.
Read More