Franklinton Across Time: The Floodplain Imagination

Centered on Franklinton, OH, Franklinton Across Time: The Floodplain Imagination explores how history and collective memory persist in relation to place, and how distance, perspective, and time shape our understanding of a neighborhood that continues to transform. Through visual storytelling and research-based practice, the exhibition asks how artists can interpret the layered histories embedded in a community’s landscape. 

Franklinton, one of Columbus’ earliest neighborhoods, serves as a compelling microcosm of urban change. Its history reflects broader social and environmental forces, including Indigenous displacement, early American settlement, cycles of devastating flooding, redlining and economic divestment, periods of abandonment, and more recent waves of redevelopment and gentrification driven in part by arts initiatives. These overlapping histories reveal a place continually reshaped by both loss and renewal. 

Approaching Franklinton as a living archive, the exhibition traces shifts in land use, community identity, and cultural memory across generations. Franklinton Across Time pairs contemporary lens-based artworks with archival photographs, documents, oral histories, and interviews with residents, engaging with the present moment while situating it within a longer historical framework. Site-responsive installations further connect the work to the physical and social landscape of the neighborhood, encouraging viewers to reflect on how past and present intersect within the evolving story of Franklinton.

Jurors: Marcus Jackson and Claire Wiedman