Portland's citywide arts triennial kicks off Aug. 27, with a four-day opening weekend that stretches across more than 15 venues, free admission and a deliberate break from the blockbuster model that defined the 2023 edition.

Converge 45, the nomadic arts organization founded by gallerist Elizabeth Leach in 2016, enters its 10th year under new executive and artistic director Amanda Donnan, who took the role in January, and guest curator Lumi Tan.

A New York-based curator who previously spent more than 12 years as senior curator at The Kitchen, Tan was tapped in 2024 to lead the triennial's next chapter.

The shift is pointed. In 2023, curator Christian Viveros-Fauné assembled more than 50 shows of imported works by names like Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley. This time, Tan commissioned pieces created specifically for Portland.

Tan titled the exhibition Here, To you, Now, a phrase drawn from Portland author Ursula K. Le Guin. Instead of flying in finished gallery pieces, she set artists up to create work in direct conversation with the city.

The results land in unexpected spots. Three shows will inaugurate the galleries of the new Schnitzer School of Art at Portland State University. Others fill Oregon Contemporary, the Reser Center for the Arts, Movie Madness, downtown DJ club Barn Radio and SE Cooper Contemporary, a small residential gallery in the Lents neighborhood.

Among the commissioned works:

• Rose Salane, Afterlife in Public at the Cooley Gallery at Reed College. The New York artist displayed a pair of Princess Diana's shoes around Portland earlier in 2026, then had a Lloyd Center magician make them vanish. The resulting video installation riffs on condolence albums cities produced when Diana died in 1997, most of which never reached Buckingham Palace.
• Linda K. Johnson, Evidence of Foot Fall at Place Gallery. The Portland-based dancer and choreographer, whose four decades of work have shaped the city's dance community, presents mind maps, interviews, costumes and ephemera from her Mycelium Dreams project, which uses forest mycology as a metaphor for networks within Portland's dance scene.
• Vo Vo, Street Meetz, premiering Saturday, Aug. 29, at Movie Madness. The Portland artist's video consists of interviews with strangers in public settings, asked about the best moments of their lives.

Additional shows run well into fall. Lex Brown's operatic video installation Carnelian is at the Reser through Oct. 17, Trisha Baga's 3D video MORE runs at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art through Oct. 24, and Meech Boakye's tactile installation at Paragon Gallery at Portland Community College–Cascade is on view through Oct. 31.

Opening weekend runs Thursday, Aug. 27, through Sunday, Aug. 30. All events are free and all ages. Full schedule and venue details are at converge45.org.