2026 Biennial
Heather F. Wetzel: Considering the Cultivated
Considering the Cultivated consists of two bodies of work by Heather F. Wetzel: Salvage and Creeping, Climbing, both exploring the role humans have on the environment, ecosystems, and food production. Salvage investigates ideas of biodiversity, monocrop culture, genetically modified crops, and the science and controversy surrounding these topics, while Creeping, Climbing takes a close look at the beauty, usefulness, and destruction of kudzu, “the vine that ate the South.”
Wetzel’s work is grounded in contemplation of life in the 21st century and current social concerns, and uses a variety of materials and methods such as historic photographic processes, hand papermaking, book arts, metal, and wood. Guided by her interest in how process and materials contribute to art as an object, Wetzel works predominantly with analog processes and craft. Her work is equally concerned with the object, alternative methods of display, and how the chosen materials support concept and content.
Related Events
Dayton Spotlight Weekend
October 16, 2026
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Spotlight Weekends highlight FotoFocus Biennial Venues within specific geographic locations where artists and curators will be on site for talks, tours, special events, and featured programming. This is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the vibrant energy of the FotoFocus Biennial, exploring art within the communities that create and present it.
Friday, 10/16
- None at this time. Check back later
Saturday, 10/17
- Dayton Bus Tour, 8am–5pm. Biennial Pass Holders only. Limited capacity
- Narrative Photobook Workshop with Trent Davis Bailey, 1pm. Rosewood Arts Center
- Artist Talk: Dan Cleary, 1pm. Dayton Society of Artists
- Gallery Talk with Dr. Mariah Postlewait, 1:30pm. Dayton Art Institute
- Artist Talk: Stacy Kranitz in Conversation with Andrew Milward, 2pm. The Contemporary Dayton
- Artist Talk and Reception for Darshan, 4pm. University of Dayton: Roger Glass Center for the Arts
- Reception and Artist Talk with Trent Davis Bailey, 5pm. Rosewood Arts Center
Sunday, 10/18
- None at this time. Check back later
Dayton Spotlight Weekend
October 17, 2026
–
Spotlight Weekends highlight FotoFocus Biennial Venues within specific geographic locations where artists and curators will be on site for talks, tours, special events, and featured programming. This is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the vibrant energy of the FotoFocus Biennial, exploring art within the communities that create and present it.
Friday, 10/16
- None at this time. Check back later
Saturday, 10/17
- Dayton Bus Tour, 8am–5pm. Biennial Pass Holders only. Limited capacity
- Narrative Photobook Workshop with Trent Davis Bailey, 1pm. Rosewood Arts Center
- Artist Talk: Dan Cleary, 1pm. Dayton Society of Artists
- Gallery Talk with Dr. Mariah Postlewait, 1:30pm. Dayton Art Institute
- Artist Talk: Stacy Kranitz in Conversation with Andrew Milward, 2pm. The Contemporary Dayton
- Artist Talk and Reception for Darshan, 4pm. University of Dayton: Roger Glass Center for the Arts
- Reception and Artist Talk with Trent Davis Bailey, 5pm. Rosewood Arts Center
Sunday, 10/18
- None at this time. Check back later
Dayton Bus Tour
October 17, 2026
8:00am – 7:30pm
Spotlight Weekends highlight FotoFocus Biennial Venues within specific geographic locations where artists and curators will be on site for talks, tours, special events, and featured programming. This is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the vibrant energy of the FotoFocus Biennial, exploring art within the communities that create and present it.
The Bus Tour is now full. To join the waitlist, please email pass@fotofocus.org.
8:00am Meet at FotoFocus Center / Ziegler Garage
8:30am Depart Cincinnati
10:00am Wright State University
Elizabeth Mead: Incident(als): objects + things, sculpture + photographs. Sculptural objects and images paired together to magnify the significance of seemingly small things and fleeting experiences.
Holly Roberts: Confluence. Hauntingly layered visual narratives experimenting with hybridity and transformation, where image and imagination converge.
Tours given by professors and curators Stefan Chinov and Tracy Longley-Cook.
11:00am Sinclair Community College Art Galleries
Katria Foster: Domestic Affair. Highlights physical and mental aspects of the female perspective, ruminating on themes of control, manipulation, and unquestioned social constructs.
Emily Wiethorn: The Death of You and Me. Photographic series examining memory, suffering, and the life-altering effects of trauma.
Introduction with Galleries Coordinator, Amanda Darrah, followed by self-guided tour.
11:35pm Dayton Society of Artists
Luminous Flow. An open call positing long-exposure photography as a way to reveal motion, energy, and the passage of time through landscapes, cityscapes, and experimental processes.
Short presentation of the exhibition provided by juror Gregory Changa Freeman.
-OR-
Stivers School for the Arts
Heather Wetzel: Considering the Cultivated. Interrogates the role humans have on the environment, ecosystems, and food production through historic photographic processes, paper making, book arts, and sculptural materials.
Gallery tour led by Leah Stahl, Director of Photography and Media Arts.
12:20pm Edward A. Dixon Gallery
Picturing Tomorrow: Speculative Futures in Lens-Based Art. Invites artists to consider how photography can be used to document not just what is, but also speculate on what could be.
Gallery tour led by owner and founder, Ed Dixon.
12:50pm Lunch
1:20pm Dayton Art Institute
Looking for Japan: Early Japanese Photography. Captures Japan’s Meiji period through postcards, albums, albumen travel photographs, and hanging scroll collotypes, reflecting on social transformation and Western influences.
Getting Technical: Alternative Photographic Processes. A group exhibition spanning 175 years, embracing photography’s founding spirit of experimentation through uncommon techniques and adaptations.
Curator talk with Mariah Postlewait, Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Curator of Feminist Art and Photography.
2:00pm The Contemporary Dayton
Ella Kraimer: Appearances. Large-scale photographic self-portraits examining identity, performance, and consumption in a digital culture shaped by spectacle and self-surveillance.
Stacy Kranitz: Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down. Documents how images and archives have shaped and distorted public understanding of Appalachia across generations.
Public artist talk featuring Stacy Kranitz in conversation with Andrew Milward, author and Director of Graduate Studies, Creative Writing Division, at the University of Kentucky. Interim Director and Chief Curator Heather Jones will also be on site.
3:45pm University of Dayton: Roger Glass Center for the Arts
Darshan. Collaborative documentary work of India exploring the Hindu philosophy and phenomenon of darshan (“to see”).
Gallery talk led by Nicholaus Arnold, Galleries Director.
5:00pm Rosewood Arts Center
Amanda Bradley: Notations from Home. Images exploring diasporic notions of home across geographies and time, using the camera as a tool for note-taking and relationship building.
Trent Davis Bailey: The North Fork. Childhood memories intertwined with images and moments from family farms on Colorado’s Western Slope.
Gallery tour and artist talk led by Trent Davis Bailey. Laura Truitt, Gallery Coordinator, and Shayna McConville, Division Manager of Cultural Arts, will also be on site. Reception with light refreshments to follow.
7:15pm Arrive in Cincinnati
Access to the entire FotoFocus Biennial Program is only one benefit of being a FotoFocus 2022 Biennial Passport holder. GET THE PASSPORT for free entry and exclusive events!
Dayton Spotlight Weekend
October 18, 2026
–
Spotlight Weekends highlight FotoFocus Biennial Venues within specific geographic locations where artists and curators will be on site for talks, tours, special events, and featured programming. This is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the vibrant energy of the FotoFocus Biennial, exploring art within the communities that create and present it.
Friday, 10/16
- None at this time. Check back later
Saturday, 10/17
- Dayton Bus Tour, 8am–5pm. Biennial Pass Holders only. Limited capacity
- Narrative Photobook Workshop with Trent Davis Bailey, 1pm. Rosewood Arts Center
- Artist Talk: Dan Cleary, 1pm. Dayton Society of Artists
- Gallery Talk with Dr. Mariah Postlewait, 1:30pm. Dayton Art Institute
- Artist Talk: Stacy Kranitz in Conversation with Andrew Milward, 2pm. The Contemporary Dayton
- Artist Talk and Reception for Darshan, 4pm. University of Dayton: Roger Glass Center for the Arts
- Reception and Artist Talk with Trent Davis Bailey, 5pm. Rosewood Arts Center
Sunday, 10/18
- None at this time. Check back later
Heather F. Wetzel: Considering the Cultivated Reception & Artist Talk with Heather F. Wetzel
October 23, 2026
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Artist talk with Heather F. Wetzel, where she will discuss her process and the exhibition, Considering the Cultivated. Reception in the gallery to follow.
Additional Information: Gallery is wheelchair accessible.
Heather F. Wetzel, Salvage 96, 2018. Ferrotype on recycled can lid, 3 × 3 inches. Courtesy of the artist
Heather F. Wetzel, Salvage 85, 2017. Ferrotype on recycled can lid, 3 × 3 inches. Courtesy of the artist
Heather F. Wetzel, Salvage 88, 2017. Ferrotype on recycled can lid, 3 × 3 inches. Courtesy of the artist
2026 Biennial
Venue Details
Stivers School for the Arts: Fifth Street Gallery
1313 E Fifth St
Dayton, OH 45402
(937) 542-7448
Mon–Fri 9am–3pm
Free to the Public
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