2026 Citywide Art Exhibition
(Portland, OR – April 30, 2024) — Converge 45 is pleased to announce globally acclaimed curator and writer Lumi Tan as the Curator of its next citywide art exhibition, opening late August 2026.
“After an extensive curatorial selection process, we are overjoyed with the opportunity to work with Lumi on the next iteration of Converge 45,” said Artistic Director Derek Franklin. “Her spirit of collaboration, commitment to artists and curatorial excellence make her an exciting addition to our team and the Portland arts community.”
Lumi Tan is an independent curator and writer based in New York. She most recently served as Curatorial Director of Luna Luna—the legendary traveling art amusement park that originated in 1987 and re-opened as an exhibition to much fanfare in Los Angeles in February 2024—which features a Ferris wheel by Jean-Michel Basquiat with music by Miles Davis, a carousel by Keith Haring, and other immersive art experiences and attractions designed by artists.
Prior to Luna Luna, Tan spent more than a decade as the Senior Curator of the powerhouse contemporary art institution The Kitchen in New York, where she produced numerous exhibitions and performances by artists such as Kevin Beasley, Meriem Bennani, Sondra Perry, and Anicka Yi. She was awarded the VIA Art Fund Curatorial Fellowship in 2020, which supports visionary curators worldwide. Earlier in her career, Tan was a guest curator at the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Nord Pas-de-Calais in France and a curatorial assistant at MoMA/PS1. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Artforum, and Frieze magazine, among other publications.
“I have always been inspired by Portland's dynamic cultural ecosystem and I am thrilled to spend the next two years learning from and collaborating with Converge 45's community partners, local artists and publics to create a biennial that reflects the specificities of the region and its relationship to national and international concerns,” said Tan.
For Converge 45, Tan will develop a citywide exhibition that creates interdependent relationships within Portland's cultural ecology. She will explore concepts of impermanence, working with local, regional and internationally significant artists across different generations and all disciplines. Her curatorial approach will be to surface the knowledge that temporary communities hold, share, and inherit from site to site. Tan will begin the curatorial development phase in May 2024, with the citywide exhibition scheduled to open in August 2026.
“Lumi Tan has distinguished herself in a sea of curators with a practice of deep listening, care and thoughtful exchanges with artists that allow them to take seeds of ideas and turn them into new, radical dream projects” said Kristan Kennedy, Artistic Director and Curator of Visual Art at PICA, Converge 45’s longtime exhibition partner. “I have always admired her work and am thrilled to welcome her and work with her in Portland as a partner and a peer.”
Tan will also work alongside recently announced Converge 45 Executive Director Kira Burge to continue to expand the local, national, and international audiences for the next iteration of Converge 45. Converge 45’s most recent citywide art exhibition brought world-class contemporary art to more than 80,000 visitors at 17 partner venues across the Portland metropolitan area, sparking vibrancy in the community and garnering national and international recognition for the Pacific Northwest as a cultural destination. Exhibitions and programs, which included talks, tours, and performances, were free and open to the public.
ABOUT CONVERGE 45
Converge 45 is the Pacific Northwest’s foremost citywide art exhibition, taking place on a three-year curatorial cycle at partner venues across the Portland metropolitan area. Dedicated to broadening access to art discourse on the 45th parallel, Converge 45 facilitates the intersection of regional, national, and international perspectives to support Portland’s creative economy and artists and organizations across the region.