Past
Understanding extraterrestrials as a product of American mythology requires seeing the multiplicity of fears in the American consciousness. Just like the hydra of conspiracy that shapes America as a nation, the intersections between extraterrestrials and the American nation-state fracture into even more intricate pieces of an unsolvable puzzle. Multimedia artist and scholar Kite performs an experimental lecture, “What‘s on the Earth is in the Stars, and What’s in the Stars is on the Earth,” which probes the real conspiracies through multiple dimensions: Lakota epistemologies and the American paranormal.
Learn moreClown Down 2: Clown Out of Water finds Portland's premiere drag clown, Carla Rossi, trapped on a rock in the ocean next to a seagull with IBS while the sea level rises. Clowning and climate disaster ensue.
Learn moreDeriving from the antique alchemistic concept of the four humors, melancholia has been a subject in science, culture, and art for centuries. Originally seen as the result of an imbalance of one of the four humors connected to a specific temperament called “black bile,” melancholia was connected to a deep sense of sadness that was believed to lead to depression, insanity, and later genius in the arts. Based in an auto-biographical collage this lecture will talk about death, birth, and past-potential-futures, proposing Black Melancholia as a place of solace and care for Black Life.
Learn moreRenowned artist, filmmaker, and writer Zach Blas will present a brand new performance lecture as part of the NIGHT SCHOOL program for this year's TBA Festival. Blas’ engagement in Portland is in partnership with the MA in Critical Studies program at Pacific Northwest College of Art at Willamette University.
Learn more“Drag Animism” explores Pepper’s personal and artistic explorations into cyborg consciousness and dirt-witch-glamour. It’s a visual and performative meditation on digital and physical bodies, the enchantment of nature, and the slippery potential of activating “persona power.”
Learn moreArab.AMP Live presents the legendary Sir Richard Bishop, guitarist and founding member of the band Sun City Girls, hybrid performance artist Lime Rickey International, and ethno-psych trio Descending Pharaohs. Arab.AMP is a platform for experimental music and live art from the Southwest Asian North African diaspora and allied communities.
Learn moreCelebrated New York and Florida filmmaker Sasha Wortzel debuts her films on the West Coast in this one-night screening. Blending the archival and the imaginary, Wortzel uses film to examine queer place-making, geographies of resistance, and the systems that marginalize, extract, and erase communities, peoples, and histories. The films will be followed by a Q & A with Wortzel.
Learn moreAdrienne Truscott made THIS. THIS is a solo performance which may not always be a solo. THIS is a small or large or medium act of artistic survivalism and an ever-evolving work that adjusts, in real time, the libretto of the performance the artist is attempting to do which changes with each performance to reflect the new context brought by the performance at hand. THIS is a run-on sentence. THIS is a grift. THIS is a piece of cake.
Learn moreBioscope is a traveling sculpture that peers into the atoms of shame. Centering the matriarch as the keeper of home, where we first experience shame, the project grapples with this feeling through personal interviews, Bollywood movies, and video performance.
Learn morejaamil olawale kosoko’s meditative multi-channel film and installation Syllabus for Black Love serves as the ship inside which the multimedia performance the hold is positioned. Through rhythmic and restorative gestures, the hold creates a perceptive and somatic experience for both performer and audience.
Learn moreSasha Worzel’s Dreams of Unknown Islands transforms the architecture of the museum into an ecological dreamscape in which coastal shores, animal migrations, and the shifting colors of the sky are transmitted through ritual sound, projected film, and a set of functional sculptures housing five listening islands that urge us to pause, rest, and contemplate.
Learn moreThe first of a new series, this episode premieres Joseph Keckler’s new musical film about a mysterious and transformative encounter, showcases an in-studio performance by vocalist and composer Holland Andrews, and features a conversation between the two artists.
Learn moreWriter Sylvan Oswald presents High Winds, a performance text about a trans man whose insomnia sparks a fantastical search for his estranged half-brother through hallucinatory desert landscapes. Gas stations, local legends, and unlikely rock formations become terrain for explorations of fear, fantasy, masculinity, and what lies “deep inside America.” Video by Katherine Freer and an electro-acoustic score by JJJJJerome Ellis set an otherworldly tone. The performance is based on Sylvan’s book of the same name, created with graphic designer Jessica Fleischmann and published by X Artists' Books (2017).
Learn moreNOTHINGBEING is a live performance project that investigates ways to embody the presence of nothingness and “being,” breathing spaces that we could easily dismiss and considering possibilities for the unfiltered self. Developed with the collaborators Samita Sinha, David Thomson, and Anna Martine Whitehead, this project addresses the notion of presence from multiple performative modalities such as moments of highly physical movement, a communal meditation, and internal activation of sensory memories.
Learn moreCelebrate the start of TBA:22 at our Opening Night with a headlining performance by renowned Los Angeles-based musician San Cha.
Learn morePICA is committed to accessibility as a value, ethic, and opportunity for learning, growth, and change. As we strive to create greater access to our programs and events, including the TBA Festival, we welcome feedback and dialogue from audiences and artists about their experiences and suggestions for improvement. To submit feedback, please contact us at boxoffice@pica.org or call 503-224-PICA (7422).
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Learn morePICA’s Creative Exchange Lab has been designed to promote artistic exchange, instigate peer-to-peer dialogue, and foster the development of new works with a focus on serving artists working at the intersection of different forms.
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Learn moreDáyquiri: Little Poems is a collection of poetry that has been building on itself over the course of seven years. The artist began this project at age 23, and he is now 30. The collection is meant to be an exploration of the things that orbit you at different points in your twenties: the evolution of identity, the swinging in and out, and the life experiences that still happen amidst crises.
Learn moreHong Kong-raised siblings Jennie MaryTai Liu and Simon Liu, in collaboration with Portland-raised artist Andrew Gilbert, share insights into the making of their experimental films force (2020) and Sistern (2021), both shot in Hong Kong in the midst of recent and current political turbulence, and exhibited for TBA in the form of an immersive, multi-channel installation and sound environment. The artists will be in conversation with Kristan Kennedy, PICA’s Artistic Director & Curator of Visual Art.
Learn moreWhat does it mean to have a critically engaged nervous system? How might the practice of following this intuitive and predictive technology cultivate possibilities for meaning-making and self-knowing? In this workshop Hannah and Emily will offer various scores and practices from their collaboration. Participants will be invited to attune to their sensations with attention toward nervous system awareness. This workshop will prioritize personal agency, needs, and boundaries for engagement.
Learn moreLet 'im Move You is a series of works choreographed by jumatatu m. poe and Jermone Donte Beacham that stem from their decade-long research into J-Sette performance. Intervention brings together a group of Black dancers for a live outdoor performance work on sidewalks and in alleyways in historically or predominantly Black neighborhoods.
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