Welcome to the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art 2007 Time-Based Art Festival.

Embracing a wide variety of contemporary art forms, TBA features artists from the Northwest, the U.S. and the World. TBA is five years old this year, and like any rambunctious five-year-old, TBA asks a lot of questions.

What is American Identity now? What is true beauty? What scares you? What is politically correct anyway? These are just a few of the many questions this year's artists are asking. TBA is a platform for artists who dream of our future, who ask us the tough, interesting questions about today and tomorrow. There is no better time to consider their questions. You should be a part of it.

TBA is about the future. It happens in Portland, a vanguard city already inventing how to exist in the future. TBA challenges norms and celebrates innovation. This yearÕs Festival includes visual art, film, dance, performance, theatre, music, our magical WORKS, and the occasional things that just happen.

Team PICA has assembled a wide-ranging TBA:07 with many threads running through it: future aesthetics, visual performance, the voice, trust, and the sheer beauty of movement. Themes will come to light as each work adds to the mix. Together we will discover the heart of this Festival.

TBA is rich with interactions, applause, laughter, shout-outs, empty glasses, spicy food, kissing in public, intense listening and the occasional sidewalk dance. In addition to local choirs, readers, national and international performers, this yearÕs Festival will also feature monofilament, old records, flowers, body paint, and smoke machines. You will even find books playing a role in TBA:07. It begins with the little book you are holding in your hands.

I look forward to seeing you at TBA:07.
Find me and ask a question.

-Mark Russell
Artistic Director, TBA:07