Cincinnati’s FotoFocus debuts its first permanent, dedicated building along with the inaugural exhibition to be presented there on May 29, 2026. FotoFocus launched in 2010 with a mission of championing photography and lens-based art through exhibitions and public programming. Always hosted somewhere else, by someone else.

The new FotoFocus Center provides the nonprofit arts organization 14,700 square feet, purpose-built to house photographic exhibitions and year-round programs.

First up, “Big Tent.” The presentation brings together work by over 50 artists reflecting upon the current state of American democracy while also considering the efficacy of photography to be a catalyst for meaningful change.

Partly inspired by the poem ‘In This Place (An American Lyric)’ by Amanda Gorman, the presentation takes its name and borrows its theme from an increasingly common metaphor used by political parties signaling a desire to welcome a broad spectrum of voters to their ranks: a big tent.

The title also winks and nods to FotoFocus’ first biennial–it’s signature event–held back in 2014, literally, in a tent.

‘Big Tent’

“Big Tent” photographs span the past century, from celebrated masterworks to more recent experiments with form and contemporary meaning. The wide variety of faces, personalities and perspectives that “Big Tent” weaves together offers up a powerful metaphor for the historical nature and contemporary promise of American democracy.

“The first show (at FotoFocus Center) needed to be something celebratory and welcoming; it just so happens also that we're in a very stressful political moment, socially and politically,” FotoFocus Artistic Director and curator Kevin Moore told me in a video interview. “I always look at all art as political and pertinent to what's happening in the world. I wanted to do a show that was both welcoming, but also insistent on broad audiences, broad coalitions, lots of different artists making art, lots of different audience members seeing art. The concept of a ‘big tent’ fit those needs.”

A consistent thread running throughout the exhibition is the genre of portraiture, specifically its long history of allowing for the possibility that ordinary people—the vast and multicultural citizenry of this country—could be both the author and subject of art.

“I hadn't thought of it being a portraiture show until hanging it,” Moore said a week after installing the exhibition. “The structure of the show is inspired by this poem by Amanda Gorman, which addresses the social struggle of the country in many ways. There's a passage in the poem toward the end where she sort of riffs on all the different kinds of people.”

Gorman wrote:

“a poem by the people, the poor,

the Protestant, the Muslim, the Jew,

the native, the immigrant,

the black, the brown, the blind, the brave,

the undocumented and undeterred,

the woman, the man, the nonbinary,

the white, the trans,

the ally to all of the above

and more?”

The passage inspired a large portrait wall on the building’s second floor.

“Our vision statement is to inspire conversation about the world through the art of photography, and so the big tent, as an umbrella term, this exhibition is amplifying our own vision, using our building as that nexus of which to do it,” FotoFocus Executive Director Katherine Siegwarth told me via video interview. “There's a crescendo, like a finale, upstairs that feels very joyful. I wouldn't call this a portrait show either, it doesn't feel that way, but it ends on this really high note of togetherness and unification.”

Or does it?

The installation lends itself to multiple interpretations.

“The portrait wall upstairs, which is kind of the crescendo, it's not necessarily happy, it's very sobering,” Moore said. “All of the pictures were chosen because each of the sitters is looking right back at the camera, they confront you in a certain way, and there's a contemplativeness to that.”

Gorman’s poem ends on an uplifting, defiant note.

As does the exhibition.

Or does it?

“Where the exhibition ends is the note we want people to leave with, and that's this country looks like everyone, and everyone looks different,” Siegwarth said.

The closing photographs are portraits taken by Marco Anelli of freshly minted Americans following their citizenship ceremonies.

“Especially in this America 250 year, that's what I want to see; that's the vision of America I think most of us still want to hold on to, this idea of the land of opportunity, this idea where everyone can exist and be an American,” Siegwarth added. “Those works really speak to what the exhibition as a whole is trying to suggest.”

Art is not math. Be thankful for that.

There is not one right answer. Be thankful for that.

There is not one America. Decide for yourself whether to be thankful for that or not.

FotoFocus Center

The FotoFocus Center is located in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine historic Mount Auburn neighborhood. One of the nation’s most fascinating urban stories can be found Over-the-Rhine. America’s most interesting neighborhood? Over-the-Rhine stakes a claim.

Germans, beer, white flight, uprising, rebirth. Over-the-Rhine condenses the history of America into several square blocks.

“It's a very condensed city, and from this location, I can look at Mount Lookout, I can look at downtown, I can see the West End,” Siegwarth said. “Cincinnati is made of 52 distinct neighborhoods. The design of the building, it is meant to be of the city and for the city, and it's felt by the expansive views that we have. What people can expect from the building, what we're hoping to achieve with this new facility, it really is again, the big tent, that's our goal, for people to come visit and to have these exhilarating, but sometimes challenging conversations.”

Free admission demonstrates FotoFocus’ stated priorities of being welcoming and community-minded are more than cheap talk.

FotoFocus is also not a one-trick pony.

“FotoFocus is more than just the Biennial. Since Kevin joined in 2013, he instituted a lot of annual programming, so there's much more that we do, but since we didn’t have a physical space, a home for people to visit, it was less understood by a general public who we are and how they can engage with us,” Siegwarth added. “This (building) will literally ground us in the community while expanding our yearly offerings. It allows Kevin and other people to design projects in our space… (and) to do programming solely on our terms.”

“Big Tent” runs through August 22, 2026, after that, we’ll see.

“It's a little intimidating, actually, to have a white piece of paper in front of you; we can do anything we want, but we are intending to create a mix of experiences through photography and film,” Moore said. “One of my perspectives on photography is that it's very expansive, it relates to other mediums, there are all kinds of departments in art photography, from fashion, photojournalism, conceptual, all of that. We're going to create a mix of those in the coming years.”

Cincinnati For The Arts; Cincinnati For The Win

Like St. Louis or Buffalo, Cincinnati in the 1800s was comparable to present day San Francisco or Miami. A center of commerce and urbanity. Cincinnati’s location along the Ohio River made it a critical transportation hub when the nation’s western frontier was still expanding.

Big, historic, wealth resides there.

You can see it in esteemed permanent collections at Cincinnati’s historic art museums.

Fortune 500 companies Kroger, Proctor & Gamble, Fifth Third Bank, and Cintas, to name a few, call it home. Xavier and the University of Cincinnati call it home.

The nation’s largest art, light and projection-mapping event calls it home.

After Miami, Cincinnati may have the nation’s greatest collection of public murals. Astounding.

One of the 20^th century’s most important conversations about art–and free speech–took place in Cincinnati.

If you’re an arts lover and you don’t know about Cincinnati, you better call somebody.

“(Artist) Xaviera Simmons was here maybe two weeks ago, and she kept saying there's something about Cincinnati, there's something about the art scene,” Seigwarth said. “There is something unique about Cincinnati and its arts in the sense that they all talk to each other, you don't always have with larger cities, where the institutions feel collaborative or well informed about what others are doing; it feels very connected.”

Moore doesn’t live in Cincinnati, but he works there and visits routinely, as he does New York and San Francisco.

“I've always found Cincinnati to be really hungry for the arts in a way that you don't often find in other cities,” he said. “In New York, you kind of take it for granted, but in Cincinnati, I always tell speakers I invite that the audience is particularly warm and attentive. Cincinnati is an old city, it's like Boston, Philadelphia, (art is) in the roots of the city in a certain way, and there's something about it that feels organic. It’s got a beating heart that a lot of other cities don’t have in terms of the arts; I go to a lot of small cities and don't see this much invested in arts and culture.”

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