Staff and Leadership

PICA’s Executive Director Victoria Frey manages PICA’s vision and direction and is responsible for all aspects of the organization’s operations and fiscal management. Prior to her tenure at PICA, Frey was the owner and director of Quartersaw Gallery. As one of the first galleries in Portland’s Pearl District and among the most influential galleries in the Pacific Northwest, Quartersaw was responsible for launching and furthering the careers of many Northwest artists. A pioneer on the Portland arts scene, Frey has been a long-standing arts advocate in our community. Frey has served numerous boards and commissions that focus on the arts landscape locally, regionally, and nationally. She currently sits on the board for Travel Portland, is Vice Chair for the Creative Advocacy Network and serves on the Advisory Boards for Caldera and the White Box at the University of Oregon in Portland.

Previous board and advisory posts include the NW Business Committee for Culture and the Arts (Board of Directors), the Oregon Arts Commission (Commissioner), The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (Advisory Panel) and the Mayor’s Creative Capacity Initiative. Frey was the founding secretary/treasurer of PICA’s Board of Trustees, served on the Executive Committee, and Co-Chaired the Campaign for PICA as the Development Chair. In addition, she has been involved in strategic planning and fiscal oversight of the organization from the time of PICA’s inception.

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.