In keeping with its perma-tentative title, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA)’s annual experimental performance fete has regularly seen major shifts with each year’s iteration. But one thing we can always count on is the Time Based Art (TBA) festival’s massive lineup of cutting edge work. Which makes planning your TBA itinerary an art form in itself.
This year’s festival covers three weekends, with most programming concentrated on the weekends in order to give audiences and artists time to recharge in between. There’s a dizzying number and variety of things to see, hear, and do—almost too many events for any one person to catch everything—but part of the enigmatic charm of TBA is the thrilling feeling of being a small part of a larger phenomenon that activates people and places across Portland.
Here’s another thing you can count on: the Mercury’s TBA Picks, a collection of the not-to-be-missed highlights of this year’s festival. Start with a few of our selections and see where your curiosity takes you, or explore the full program at pica.org/tba.
