Faculty contribute as artists, curators, and community participants throughout the region
Mount St. Joseph University Art & Design faculty in the Department of Creative Arts are making their mark across the region as part of the 2026 FotoFocus Biennial: The Long View, one of the largest celebrations of photography and lens-based art in the United States.
The eighth FotoFocus Biennial brings together 74 exhibitions at 65 venues across Greater Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Northern Kentucky. This year’s theme, The Long View, considers time and perspective in photography and film and the ways these media shape our understanding of the past, present, and future.
MSJ faculty are participating in the Biennial in numerous roles as exhibiting artists, curators, educators, and community participants demonstrating the many ways the University’s faculty remain actively engaged in the regional arts community.
Emily Wiethorn: The Death of You and Me
Sinclair Community College Art Galleries
September 26–October 26, 2026
MSJ Assistant Professor of Art & Design Emily Wiethorn presents the deeply personal exhibition The Death of You and Me at Sinclair Community College Art Galleries.
A survivor of sexual assault and abduction, Wiethorn uses photography to examine memory, suffering, trauma, and the nonlinear process of healing. Six years after being drugged, abducted, and sexually assaulted by a stranger, Wiethorn explores what it means to tell a story when pieces of that story have been taken away.
The work considers how trauma changes one's understanding of self, affects those closest to a survivor, and complicates the relationship between memory and experience. Rejecting the expectation that stories and healing must have a clear beginning, middle, and end, Wiethorn creates a visual language for experiences that resist a simple narrative.
Her exhibition connects powerfully to The Long View by examining how the past remains present and how photographs can become vehicles for confronting, reconstructing, and living with memory.
AfterImage: Portraiture as Memory
Mount St. Joseph University, Studio San Giuseppe Art Gallery
September 23–October 28, 2026
MSJ is also an official FotoFocus Biennial venue through Studio San Giuseppe Art Gallery's exhibition AfterImage: Portraiture as Memory.
Curated by Emily Wiethorn and MSJ graduate Dahlia Baer, AfterImage features photographers and lens-based artists from Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky whose work explores memory, identity, relationships, and time through portraiture and contemporary storytelling.
The exhibition considers photographs as more than records of a particular moment. Portraits become artifacts, family albums become archives, and images connect people across generations and distances. Together, the works ask viewers to consider photography's ability to preserve who we were, document who we are, imagine who we might become, and influence how we are ultimately remembered.
MSJ faculty members Dr. Michaelann Kelley and Swati Chopra are among the artists selected for the exhibition, further highlighting the University's faculty presence within the Biennial.
For MSJ students, having a nationally recognized photography program represented within their own campus gallery also provides the opportunity to experience professional exhibition practices and contemporary lens-based art without leaving campus.
The Long Lives We Carry
Clifton Cultural Arts Center
September 25–October 23, 2026
Dr. Michaelann Kelley, Associate Professor of Art & Design, also participated in the community component of The Long Lives We Carry at the Clifton Cultural Arts Center.
Curated by Saad Ghosn of SOS Art, the exhibition brings together photographs by Cincinnati photojournalist Gordon Baer and Slovak photographer Jano Rečo in an examination of aging, caregiving, institutional life, vulnerability, and human dignity.
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Clifton Cultural Arts Center and SOS Art invited community members to contribute photographs and reflections honoring the elders who have shaped their lives. The evolving installation creates a collective portrait of parents, grandparents, neighbors, mentors, friends, and loved ones.
Kelley has three photographs included in this community response section, extending her photographic practice into a collaborative project centered on memory, relationships, and the lives people carry with them across generations.
The community project echoes the larger Long View theme by asking participants not only to consider individual photographs, but also to think about how images preserve relationships and personal histories over time.
JJ Baker Selected for Jasper Arts Juried Exhibition
MSJ's faculty engagement in photography and contemporary art extends beyond the official FotoFocus exhibitions. JJ Baker, adjunct faculty member in Art & Design, was selected for the 33rd Annual Juried Art Exhibition at Jasper Arts' Thyen-Clark Cultural Center in Jasper, Indiana, on view September 3 through November 22, 2026.
Baker was one of only 34 artists selected for the juried exhibition. The exhibition includes two- and three-dimensional work across a broad range of media, including photography, prints, painting, collage, sculpture, ceramics, and graphite.
The selection further demonstrates the active professional practices MSJ faculty bring into their classrooms and share with students.
Connecting the Classroom, University, and Arts Community
Together, these exhibitions demonstrate the breadth of creative activity taking place among Mount St. Joseph University's Art & Design faculty. MSJ faculty are not simply teaching students about contemporary artistic practice they are actively contributing to it.
From Wiethorn's intensely personal exploration of trauma and memory, to Kelley and Chopra's participation in AfterImage, Kelley's community-based photography in The Long Lives We Carry, Baker's selection for a regional juried exhibition, and Wiethorn's role as both artist and curator, MSJ faculty are engaging with photography and visual art from multiple perspectives.
Their participation also creates important connections for MSJ students. Students learn alongside faculty members who continue to exhibit, curate, research, and participate in the professional arts community, bringing those experiences directly back into the classroom and studios at the Mount.
The 2026 FotoFocus Biennial's theme, The Long View, asks audiences to consider how photography helps people understand time, memory, history, and the future. Through their work across Cincinnati, Dayton, and the broader region, MSJ Art & Design faculty are contributing their own perspectives to that conversation and demonstrating the important role artists and educators play in preserving stories, examining the present, and imagining what comes next.
