TBA:19 CONVERSATION
Hospitality: On Food, Festivals, and Art with Spencer Byrne-Series and PICA Artistic Directors
A panel discussion with PICA’s Artistic Directors and other curators and arts administrators to consider how art institutions host, celebrate, and make people feel welcome in their spaces. Moderated by Spencer Byrne-Series, PICA's Exhibitions Director, and curator of TBA:FOOD.
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
Spencer Byrne-Series is an artist and culture worker based in Portland, OR. Originally from Santa Fe, NM, Spencer moved to Portland in 2009 to study at Lewis & Clark College and holds an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University. As an artist, Spencer works on large and small scale participatory projects that reframe our personal relationships with institutions and systems, often by creating pseudo-institutions inside of existing frameworks. He is a lead artist for Columbia River Creative Initiatives, an ongoing series of projects based within a minimum-security men’s prison in Northeast Portland. Spencer has worked at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art since 2013, and currently serves as the Exhibitions Director, where he oversees the design and production of large scale installations, exhibitions, and a variety of events and programs that complement the PICA’s Visual Arts Program. He is the curator of the Food Program for PICA’s annual Time-Based Art Festival.
Kristan Kennedy is a curator, artist, and educator and has been involved with PICA since 1995, starting as a volunteer before being presented in the program as an artist in 2001. Kennedy served on the Board of Directors beginning in 2001 and joined the staff in 2003. Working with Frey and Boberg-Doughton, she helped to lead the organization through its founding leadership transition and major programmatic shift to PICA’s inaugural Time-Based Art Festival. Kennedy has been curating programming, artist residencies, publishing, lecturing, and teaching since 2005 when she started programming visual art, multidisciplinary, performance, and music for the TBA Festival and returned PICA to full program of year round exhibitions and public programming in 2012. Kennedy is the chief architect for the Precipice Fund, PICA’s re-granting program funded by the Warhol Foundation. Kennedy lectures about curatorial practice and artist-centric ethics at institutions nationally including most recently at Bard CCS, Washington State University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Oregon State University, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Cornish College of Arts, Flagler College, Hampshire College, Atlanta Contemporary, Henry Art Gallery, Portland Art Museum, University of Washington and at UC Berkeley as part of Shannon Jackson’s Symposium, Curating People Symposium for the Artist Research Center.
Kennedy teaches Contemporary Art History at Portland State University for the BFA and MFA Studio Practice program and Social Practice MFA Program. From 2009 to 2014, Kennedy curated the PSU MFA Visiting Artist Program, founded the programs journal Studio. Kennedy is a Mentor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art since the founding of their MFA in Visual Studies program in 2006 and was recently a visiting scholar, curator for the MFA Performance Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Impact Festival.
Kennedy has been a juror, panelist, and adviser for several national foundations and institutions including Creative Capital, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Museum of Art and Design, The New Foundation, The Brink Award, On the Boards, Headlands Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure / Alternative Exposure and On the Boards, Nohl Fellowship, Rauschenberg Foundation, LACE Exhibitions, Artist Pension Trust, Cannonball Arts, United States Artists, Museum of Art and Design Van Lier Fellowships, The Artists Trust, Art Innovator Awards and the Foundation for Contemporary Art. In 2012, Kennedy was invited by the Centre Pompidou and Gaite Lyrique to curate a program of experimental music and video from the Pacific Northwest which brought over 30 artists from Portland to perform and present at a regional festival which spanned from Paris to Metz and across three major Contemporary Art Centers.
Erin Boberg Doughton is Artistic Director and Curator of Performance, curating and producing PICA’s performance programs including dance, music, theatre, and multi-disciplinary forms as part of PICA’s annual TBA (Time-Based Art) Festival as well as year-round presentations and residencies. She recently served as a Hub Site representative for the National Dance Project (NDP), as a board member of the National Performance Network (NPN), and as a curator for NPN’s Performing Americas Program focused on artistic exchange between the US and Latin America. She serves on the advisory board for the residency and performance space New Expressive Works.
Doughton researches, commissions, and supports artists through the development, premiere, and touring of original works, with a focus on emerging artists and forms, development of new work, socially and civically engaged practice, site-specific projects, collaborations, and cultural exchange.
Doughton regularly serves on artist selection and awards juries for local, regional, and national organizations including On the Boards’ NW New Works Festival, REDCAT’s New Original Works Festival, Risk Reward Festival, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Portland Art Museum’s NW Film Center, Creative Capital, MAP Fund, Headlands Center for the Arts, and Charlotte Street Arts Foundation. She teaches performance at PNCA (Pacific Northwest College of Art) as an Assistant Professor and Mentor for MFA candidates.
Doughton held many positions at PICA starting as a volunteer in 1995, and worked as Programs Manager, Assistant Curator, and Performance Programs Director up until her recent appointment in November 2017. Prior to joining PICA, Doughton was an intern for Kristy Edmunds at the Art on the Edge program of the Portland Art Museum and served as the Education Outreach Coordinator for the Northwest Film Center’s Video/Filmmaker-in-Schools program, where she coordinated the Young People’s Film and Video Festival. She studied dance, music, and theatre at Lewis & Clark College where she received her Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honors in Theatre in 1994.
Roya Amirsoleymani joined PICA in 2012, first as Community Engagement Manager, then as Director of Public Engagement, and now as Artistic Director & Curator of Public Engagement. She has grown PICA’s public programming into a robust curatorial platform for education, access, participation, contextualization, and critical inquiry through an expanded Time-Based Art Festival Institute (including a Guest Scholars and Writers arm), Field Guide to Dance audience engagement program, summer symposia series, socially engaged and participatory performance projects, and other initiatives that emphasize artist-audience connections and promote dialogue and exchange around contemporary art, culture, and politics. She has developed cross-cultural partnerships with local nonprofits, public schools, colleges and universities, and youth groups to broaden access to PICA’s programs and diversify the organization’s audienceship, leadership, civic role, community reach, and support for local artists, with particular attention to racial equity. She is co-director of PICA’s Precipice Fund, part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ Regional Regranting Program, which makes grants to unincorporated, collaborative, visual art projects, programs, and spaces in the greater areas of Portland, Astoria, and Eugene, Oregon. With other program staff, she is integral to sustaining PICA’s innovative Creative Exchange Lab artist residency program.
Roya is a founding member of Arts Workers for Equity (AWE), which advocates for racial equity in Portland’s arts and culture sector through research, campaigns, and public programs. She has delivered papers and presentations and served as a lecturer and panelist at national conferences and convenings, including Common Field; Dance/USA; National Performance Network/Visual Art Network; Alliance of Artist Communities; Society of Dance History Scholars/Congress on Research in Dance; and UCLA’s Thinking Gender. She has served on numerous grant and award selection panels, including MAP Fund; National Performance Network; ArtPlace America; Brink Award (Pacific NW); The New Foundation (Seattle); Kindling Fund (Portland, ME); Grit Fund (Baltimore); Platforms Fund (New Orleans); Performance Works NW (Portland, OR); and Oregon Arts Commission. Locally, she served on Metro’s inaugural Community Placemaking Grants Advisory Council and the Jade & Midway Districts’ Art Plan Steering Committee. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Art & Social Practice MFA Program at Portland State University, named one of the top 15 art schools nationally, she has taught courses in Critical Art Theory, Contemporary Art History, Art & Politics, and Directed Studies.
Prior to PICA, Roya worked in galleries and produced freelance curatorial projects in San Francisco and Greater LA as well as Phoenix, where she was also a grant writer and education program manager for a women’s foundation. She earned a B.A. in Contemporary Visual Culture & Gender Studies from the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies in California, and a Master’s in Arts Management from the University of Oregon, concentrating in Community Arts with a thesis on planning for public participation and community engagement in contemporary feminist art programs.
ABOUT TBA:19 INSTITUTE
TBA:FOOD Publication: Look for free copies of the second edition of the TBA:FOOD publication, which explores the intersection of food, festivals, community,and socially engaged art through essays and interviews.
TBA Conversations are an opportunity to hear directly from festival artists about their practices, processes, and the ideas behind their work through presentations, panel discussions, and dialogues with guest artists, curators, and scholars.
All TBA Conversations are FREE of charge and take place on the PICA Patio unless otherwise noted. TBA:FOOD service will be available, including grab-and-go lunch, snacks, and drinks.
Please note that some conversations will be ASL interpreted.
The PICA Patio is ADA accessible. For any other access needs or requests, please contact the TBA Box Office at boxoffice@pica.org or 503-224-PICA.