The Lens

Excavated: From Soil to Stars examines land as a keeper of memory. In the fields of Maysville, Kentucky, and under the stars above, a weathered wood building stood witness to a 190-year-old history. A short film directed by Emmy Award-winning director Alphonso J. Wesson traces the journey of the sun as it rises and falls over the crops of Maysville and the land upon which a slave pen once stood. That slave pen, carefully excavated and now on display in the Grand Hall of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, provides testimony of a wicked past.

Probate inventory... Continue reading Alphonso Wesson: Excavated: From Soil to Stars

In contemporary society, self-portraiture is an act of reclamation and a declaration of selfhood. Through the use of photography, video, and sculpture, four artists find their voices and express the complexities of their life experiences. Their approach to imagining the self is multifaceted and involves more than just depictions of a physical body; their portraits are reflections of the ancestral stories, cultural traditions, and modern realities that shape their identity.

Through the intimate act of turning the camera towards themselves, they invite the viewer to reflect and bear witness to their existence. This exhibition is a mode of self-discovery,... Continue reading as it was meant to be told: AAPI Artists on Selfhood and Belonging

Blank Generation presents a panoramic visual survey of the tectonically shifting arts culture of the 1970s–80s in downtown New York City, and the raw and dynamic new ideas in music, film, art, literature, graffiti, fashion, queer culture, and performance that it spawned. The bleak and bankrupt NYC of Travis Bickle and Ratso Rizzo felt like a city teetering on the verge of collapse, but in the dive bars, abandoned buildings, and squats of the grimiest neighborhoods, a cultural renaissance was taking place. 

The iconoclastic writers, musicians, scenesters, performers, outsiders, and other creators whose life... Continue reading Blank Generation: Downtown New York 1970s–80s

Convening Stories at the Crossroads is a site-specific, outdoor, projection-based public artwork that explores intersecting histories and experiences of place. Working in video and sound, artist Diane Fellows weaves together multiple strands and sources to construct enterable spaces and compelling filmic and sonic narratives. Participation, collaboration, and input from community members creates a collage of stories that moves through the landscape, unearthing moments of friction as well as weaving together past and present, town and gown, and urban and rural experiences in Butler County. 

Images and sound overtake the Performing Arts Quad, home to a public sculpture by Ursula... Continue reading Convening Stories at the Crossroads

Late in 2020, as the pandemic raged, Matthew Shelton escaped his home in Chicago for three weeks and visited South Carolina’s low-country coastal area near Beaufort. This was a uniquely personal experience, as the artist had lived near this area in childhood and had rarely returned. Multiple visits were made to Hunting Island State Park, a place more renowned for its wild forests and dramatically shifting coastline than its beaches. 

Stairways that once led to the beach are buried now, with occasional traces showing up through the sand. Cabins that were fully functional 30 years ago are now ruins,... Continue reading Hunting Island