ARTS & CULTURE

ARTS &

CULTURE

Artistic rendering of FotoFocus’s new building

PHOTO: JOSE GARCIA DESIGN + CONSTRUCTION

A New View

Cincinnati lens-based arts nonpro t FotoFocus breaks ground on a new event and exhibition center in Over-the-Rhine

BY NATALIE CLARE

The future’s looking brighter than ever for FotoFocus, the Cincinnati-based nonpro t that celebrates the art and history of photography, lm and lens-based media.

For the past 12 years, the organization has been relying on partnerships with local venues to present its own curated events. But come 2024, it will have a home of its own called FotoFocus Center at the corner of Liberty and Sycamore streets in historic Over-the-Rhine.

“I’ve wanted us to have our own building from the beginning,” FotoFocus artistic director and curator Kevin Moore tells CityBeat. “When you collaborate with other institutions, you’re meeting their expectations or parameters a lot of the time. Sometimes that’s great — it sends you o in unexpected directions. But for us, it’s going to be a chance to do, creatively, anything we want.”

Founded in 2010 in Cincinnati, FotoFocus provides programming and support for projects that make lens-based media accessible to the public. Signature programming includes the Biennial, which is held every two years in October and o ers a month-long series of events relevant to photography, lm and lens-based art.

Uni ed by a single theme, Biennial events are held at galleries, museums and other venues throughout Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, Dayton and Columbus. It represents the largest gathering of its kind in America, according to FotoFocus’s website.

Other signature programming includes day-long symposiums about art in the current social climate, in-person talks, virtual conversations and lm and video screenings. e organization describes the soon-to-be-built FotoFocus Center as “a world-class venue purpose-built to present a wide range of curated exhibitions, educational events and lm screenings each year, furthering FotoFocus’s mission of enriching our understanding of photography.”

It will include 4,500 square feet of gallery space, an 835-square-foot outdoor terrace on the upper level and 2,200 square feet of o ce space. e project is estimated to cost $6-$7 million.

FotoFocus is collaborating with Jose García Design + Construction to bring the new venue to its feet. e design company was founded by architect Jose García and boasts a visually stunning portfolio of projects, including the sleek studio space at Lightborne Communications in Over-the-Rhine, where FotoFocus sta have been operating.

Moore says the FotoFocus Center will have a exible, open-plan space that can convert to accommodate di erent shows and functions.

“ e space is tailor-made to exactly what we think about and what we see of the future of an exhibition space for photography and lens-based art and what it will look like and how it will need to function,” Moore says.

He says the center is designed to accommodate a social component, too.

“You don’t show art as only a solitary, contemplative experience. You show it to have a conversation. So people being there, talking about it, talking with each

Artistic rendering of the lobby in FotoFocus’s new building

PHOTO: JOSE GARCIA DESIGN + CONSTRUCTION

other in response to it, that’s really the ethos of FotoFocus, I’d say,” Moore says.

“We think of ourselves as a kind of conversation-generating organization. It’s sort of like exploring the world through photography — it’s not necessarily about photography, per se,” he continues.

FotoFocus executive director Mary E. Goeke says the organization and its board began discussions about a new building roughly two years ago. ey were given the green light to explore properties and determined Over-the-Rhine as the most ideal location because of its proximity to other arts and cultural institutions like the Taft Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati Art Museum, the Art Academy of Cincinnati and the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning.

“As a nonpro t dedicated to the education of ne art photography — both its history and its contemporary practitioners — we felt that we wanted it to be community-based,” Goeke tells CityBeat. “We nd that our partnerships with universities and with the regional arts organizations are really the signi cant identi er, I believe, for FotoFocus’s mission. We are collaborators. I think that’s how we view our work.”

One such collaboration, Goeke says, is with e Carnegie in Covington. FotoFocus held a symposium and regional juried exhibition there in the past, and she envisions partnering with them again on future projects.

Another collaboration could also be with BLINK, the sprawling festival of light and art that takes place downtown every few years (as of press time, BLINK is slated to take place Oct. 13-16). FotoFocus has partnered with the Contemporary Arts Center for previous BLINK festivals, supporting light installations seen at the space.

“I do think that, for us, this is a really pivotal time. We were founded 12 years ago in a very organic way, in terms of working directly with gallerists and institutions in the city,” Goeke says. “We’ve built up really good partnerships with many venues. We look at the facility as a place that’s meant to be very open and as a community gathering spot for photographers and people interested in lens-based art.”

Aesthetically, the FotoFocus Center will feature contemporary design sensibilities with homages to Overthe-Rhine’s historic architecture. e corbeling pattern of the brick (in which bricks stick out further from the wall to create a sort of ledge) is a nod to the 19th-century masonry that’s prominent in many buildings throughout the neighborhood. Large glass windows refer to factory buildings as well as an historical, open-forum style of architecture that was popular in the 19th century, Moore says. e building design integrates artistic details that are speci c to lens-based media, too.

Custom-gridded steel window frames reference a camera’s view nder to allow light to enter the building’s common spaces. White exterior marble (which will be backlit during the evenings) references black-and-white photography. Wood materials in the interior have a visual sepia e ect.

“We wanted it to represent the idea of photography in a way,” Moore says. “When we chose Jose García, we knew that he was a materials guy. We knew we weren’t going to get a glass and steel cube.”

“You can take the building as an indirect metaphor,” García said during a reception after the FotoFocus Center’s groundbreaking on April 8. “It’s a very quiet building, and yet I hope it’s interesting enough for you to start looking at details and, in your own mind, make whatever references you want to make.

“Do I see a view nder, or do I see a hallway turned inside out? Is that a beacon in the night that is trying to say, ‘I’m here?’ Or is it trying to pay homage to a material that you nd inside the 19th-century building? Is it too showy?…Is it at? Is it deep? Or is it all of the above? at’s a continuing metaphor that has no end.”

Find out more about FotoFocus, its new building and future programming at fotofocus.org.

CULTURE Queen City Commons Tackles Food Waste Through Composting

BY MACKENZIE MANLEY

Queen City Commons’ co-operators Marie Hopkins (left) and Julia Marchese

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY QUEEN CITY COMMONS

Turn food waste back into soil — that’s the initiative upon which the composting service Queen City Commons (QCC) was founded.

Started by Marie Hopkins, the idea rst formed over a conversation with a friend who had recently moved into an apartment and was in search of an organization to take her food scraps.

“I had heard about the service in a few other cities and was looking to do something new,” Hopkins tells CityBeat. “I thought, ‘(Composting) is really easy and should be accessible for everyone.’”

With a background in biomedical engineering and nonpro t experience, Hopkins began researching the idea in 2019. She later set up a GoFundMe and received a $10,000 Hamilton County Waste Reduction Innovation Grant to fund the project.

QCC started collecting scraps by the beginning of 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Currently registered as an LLC, it’s in the company’s ve-year plan to transition into a worker-owned cooperative.

As composting services have become more prominent in cities across America, so too has the role food waste plays on the environment.

A 2019 report from Greater Cincinnati sustainability alliance Green Umbrella cites that 40% of food produced in the U.S. is wasted, which not only squanders resources but also produces greenhouse gasses. Cincinnati is not an anomaly: e same report notes that “more than 30% of organics entering the land ll could be residentially composted and nearly 50% could be commercially composted.”

Hopkins says QCC started o in March 2020 doing commercial collection but pivoted to include residential drop-o locations. Julia Marchese was one of the rst residents to sign up for QCC’s services and later joined Hopkins as the company’s second employee.

QCC currently collects food scraps from Greater Cincinnati businesses and organizations and also provides compost drop-o sites for residents.

Composting containers used by Queen City Commons

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY QUEEN CITY COMMONS

“We try to make it as accessible as possible,” Marchese says. “With (the) commercial operation, we o er up as much information as possible about how the process works, what’s compostable and what’s not as well as doing employee training so we’re not getting a lot of contaminants.”

QCC currently has 17 commercial partners, including co ee shops, restaurants, o ces and food pantries. Around 120 residents are signed up to use their community bins.

For residents, QCC accepts compost on a sliding-scale payment option — between $5 and $15 per month, based on income. Neighborhoods with drop-o locations include College Hill, Northside, Over-the-Rhine, Walnut Hills and Madeira. QCC also collects scraps at the Northside Farmers Market every Wednesday during summer.

Marchese notes that their drop-o locations are chosen intentionally, whether to be close to an apartment building or in a more concentrated urban area.

“ at’s part of the thought behind the drop-o : If you don’t have time, energy or space to (compost) at home, you have one close by in the neighborhood,” Marchese says. ough QCC is a small part of the food waste solution, Hopkins says multiple avenues are needed to tackle the issue. eir focus has largely been on partnering with local farms and gardens to provide composting material to use as soil. Food scraps collected by QCC are composted back into soil that farms can then use to grow more food, o ering at least one way to reduce waste.

In Ohio, non-residential facilities larger than 500 square feet that compost are required to register with the state’s EPA. is can be a barrier, Hopkins says. So far, QCC has partnered with growers that meet those guidelines, including Carriage House Farm and Walnut Hills Gardens, to compost collected food scraps without having to register with the state’s EPA. Such collaborations speak to their closed-loop ethos.

As an example, Marchese says QCC collects around 150 to 200 pounds of scraps per week from Bouquet, a restaurant in Covington. at material is then taken to Carriage House Farm, which uses the nished soil in garden beds to grow produce, some of which Bouquet buys. Seeing those circular

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Food ready to be composted by Queen City Commons

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY QUEEN CITY COMMONS

relationships in action, Marchese says, is a “proud mom moment.”

Most of the scraps QCC collects are vegetative: onion and banana peels, moldy bread, overripe produce, greens, co ee lters, beans, eggshells and paper. Each of their 64-gallon residential compost bins includes a label with information on acceptable items to toss in.

Non-compostable items include: dairy, meat and sh, oils and grease, harsh cleaning products, plastics, produce stickers, pet waste, compostable serviceware, clothing and dryer lint, most tea bags, glossy paper and cardboards.

Since QCC only does small-scale composting, they are unable to accept the “compostable’’ plastics that you might get at a co ee shop or restaurant. ese plastics need to be processed at larger facilities.

“If you are conscious of going to a farmers market or buying local produce, that’s one way people can connect with the natural world and our reliance on it,” Hopkins says. “Composting is a way to connect to the other end of that. You know where you’re buying your food from and you’re also choosing to do something with what’s leftover.” e leftovers are then turned into something useful that can provide nutrients, Hopkins says. If humans won’t eat it, soil biology will.

Marchese adds that composting makes people more aware of their own consumption and community impact.

As QCC grows, they hope to expand the model already in place by adding drop-o bins in more Hamilton County neighborhoods. ey also aim to create more of a network of places to process their scraps.

“We’re another piece of the composting puzzle across the city,” Marchese says. “ ere’s so many di erent ways to compost and there’s so many ways to collect it.”

Find out more about how to compost with Queen City Commons and get addresses for current residential drop-off bins at queencitycommons.com.

VISUAL ART

BY SEAN M. PETERS

Colonel Sanders action gures on display in The Colonel: A Group Art Show

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY EARTH TO KENTUCKY

Colonel Harland David Sanders is synonymous with fried chicken, but who is he really? e man started selling his secret-recipe chicken in the 1930s before launching the KFC franchise in the 1950s. Today, his cartoon face — complete with glasses, beard and Western bow tie — is plastered all over the fast food franchise’s branding.

Sanders’ life and lore have been the topic of several recent lms. KFC produced a light-hearted mini biopic for Lifetime called A Recipe for Seduction, starring Mario Lopez as Sanders. A more serious lm, titled A Finger Lickin’ Good Story: e Life of Colonel Sanders, is on schedule to shoot, making the white-haired Southern gentleman who’s been dead for 42 years all the rage in pop culture, for some reason.

While an illustrated likeness of Sanders is how most people recall his visage, Covington’s indie toy shop Earth to Kentucky is hoping to change that. e Colonel: A Group Art Show features the work of more than 30 di erent artists from around the world. Each artist has crafted a unique depiction of Sanders using an action gure-sized “blank Colonel” resin sculpture made by California artist Scott Cherry as the template. Designs reimagine Sanders as Guy Fieri and e Joker, and there are gold-plated and pinstriped Colonels along with Colonels dipped in acid — it’s all colorful, absurd and strangely appetizing.

Earth to Kentucky co-owner and show co-organizer Dustin Benzing talked to CityBeat recently to discuss more about the exhibit’s origins, artists and weirdest pieces on display. e Colonel: A Group Art Show runs through May 7.

CityBeat: Did you curate this exhibit? Where did the idea come from?

Dustin Benzing: e idea for this show has been around for quite a while, in di erent forms. My friend Scott Cherry, an artist in California, and I would bounce ideas around for it, but it wasn’t until he sent me a photo of the in-progress (Colonel) sculpture that it really started to come together. I think Scott really worked out most of the framework for how we ended up putting it together and curated the bulk of the lineup. It was a collaborative e ort, but I really wanted to give him the reins since the show is built around his sculpture.

CB: How would you describe the original Colonel sculpture? Any interesting notes on the original artist?

DB: e Colonel gure is really fantastic. Scott always manages to infuse so much of his personality into his work. He’s one of the most talented people I know. In addition to his art

Artist Jonathan Queen’s action gure reimagines Colonel Sanders as “Coloneljuice.”

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY EARTH TO KENTUCKY

toys, he does black velvet paintings and has a really fantastic ongoing stop-motion-style comic book called Barbarian Rage. It’s always great when we nd a reason to collaborate.

CB: Tell me about your favorite items in the show.

DB: Honestly, this show has so many of my favorite artists, and they all knocked it out of the park. at sounds like I’m just dodging the question, but it’s the truth.

CB: Did any local artists contribute?

DB: We have about six local artists in the show including Maximus Patton (1 Trick Pony), Jake Hill (Skull & Void) and Jonathan Queen, who created the Kenner (toy) mural downtown.

CB: Which sculpture traveled the greatest distance to Kentucky? Who made it?

DB: I think it’s a tie between Jose Pacheco (Pez Banana) in Venezuela and Russell Taysom in the U.K. Both are roughly 4,000 miles from here.

CB: Will the items be for sale after the show completes? If not, what’s their fate?

DB: e pieces in the show will go on sale (April 15) at 5 p.m., both in store and online. ey’ll remain on display until the show is done so that people have a chance to come down to the shop and see them in person.

CB: Did you make any designs of your own for this exhibit?

DB: I do have a piece in this show. I couldn’t not make something for it, honestly.

CB: Do you like to eat KFC? Does that even matter with this event?

DB: I haven’t eaten KFC in a while, but seeing some of these pieces has actually made me a little hungry. I’d like to think this show has more to do with the Colonel’s mythic status as a Kentucky icon than his fried chicken, but I’m pretty sure there will be plenty of both.

The Colonel: A Group Art Show

runs through May 7 at Earth to Kentucky (836 Main St., Covington). More info: earth2kentucky.com.