A massive art show kicks off this week across Portland
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Lex Brown's immersive, three-channel film "Carnelian" at The Reser uses music, satire and speculative storytelling to explore power and uncertainty. Photo: Courtesy of Lex Brown
A sprawling contemporary arts exhibition will turn Portland galleries, college campuses and even a downtown nightclub into one big art show starting this week.
The big picture: Converge 45, a local nonprofit with a mission to amplify the work of Pacific Northwest artists, launches its 2026 triennial "Here, To You, Now" on Thursday with four days of receptions, performances, screenings and artist talks.
- Free exhibitions at 16 venues will feature 28 regional and international artists, with programming continuing into the fall.
This year's theme centers on impermanence and the fleeting communities that form around art, inspired in part by the writings of Portland literary icon Ursula K. Le Guin's 1985 novel "Always Coming Home."
Here are some of the shows taking place across the city:
- Artist Rose Salane's multichannel video installation "Afterlife in Public" at Reed College's Cooley Gallery draws connections between a magic shop at Lloyd Center and Portland's public mourning of Princess Diana in 1997.
- Portland choreographer Linda K. Johnson's "The Evidence of Foot Fall" at Place Gallery mines her 40 years of costumes, photographs, sound and memories to ask how the feeling of dance survives after it's done.
- At Barn Radio, Portland artists Sidony O'Neal and Keyon Gaskin combine installation, ambient audio storytelling and live performance Saturday night, followed by a late-night DJ set.
Meanwhile, musician Marcus Fischer's meditation on grief, "Reliquary at the Veil," at PCC's Sylvania campus, uses vintage tape recorders, folk songs and objects belonging to his late father to explore the human desire to be connected to the dead.
Zoom in: Curator Lumi Tan tells Axios the show is designed to get attendees moving through Portland and allow them to share space with people they otherwise might not.
- "Our sense of community is constantly changing," Tan says. "We just need that reminder that it's still possible and to not take those opportunities for granted."
- Tan says the concept became less abstract as the artists themselves navigated a changing world — from climate emergencies to disappearing local spaces.
- The throughline, she says, quickly became about holding still in those moments of change long enough to examine how they reshape us.
- That's why performance became such a large part of the triennial, she says: It exists, then disappears.
If you go: Opening weekend kicks off Thursday at 2pm at Portland State University's Schnitzer School of Art, and various events take place across the city through Sunday.
- Many exhibitions will continue through the fall and close on different schedules beginning in October.