PORTLAND — An exhibition at Oregon Contemporary showcases Ursula K. Le Guin's first typewriter alongside personal artifacts from her life and career. The show, curated by her son, features a 1929 Underwood typewriter that lacks an exclamation point, requiring users to create one manually by typing an apostrophe, backspacing, and adding a period. The exhibition runs through February 8, 2025.

Visitors can interact with the typewriter, creating carbon copies of their writings while experiencing the tactile sensation of manual typing. The gallery fills with the distinctive clack-clack sound as people compose poetry, memoirs, fiction, political statements, and fan mail. Some visitors return multiple times to type polished pieces after drafting at home.

The curator describes the challenge of creating a biographical exhibition about his mother while avoiding reductionist narratives. Le Guin herself resisted being pigeonholed, famously stating that her tentacles were coming out of any pigeonhole in all directions. The exhibition embraces a non-linear approach inspired by Le Guin's essay 'The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,' which argues against the hero's journey as the default storytelling model.

Through letters, manuscripts, and a 38-foot dragon mural containing visual ephemera from Le Guin's life, the exhibition captures the complexity of her literary legacy. The curator emphasizes that his version of Ursula is just one interpretation of a writer who constantly reinvented herself throughout her career. The show demonstrates how exhibitions can function as carrier bags for culture and knowledge rather than linear narratives.

Quick Fact: Ursula K. Le Guin's typewriter exhibition at Oregon Contemporary runs through February 8, 2025.