Venues

Project Obscura
September 8–November 3

Exhibition Reception
Saturday October 13, 6 pm–9 pm

A confluence of works from ten Cincinnati community organizations, Project Obscura offers each participant the opportunity to chart his or her own place in the city. Within the project, the organizations each make one image with a mobile camera obscura, a device acting as a large-scale pinhole camera. This camera produces an image measuring four by ten feet, recorded with conventional black and white photographic materials processed in Prairie’s darkroom and assembled for exhibition. Each image embodies expression of the participating organization’s identity in the community, a glimpse not only of place and purpose but past and future. The camera obscura presents new possibilities for creative expression by permitting staging and directing both in front of and inside of the camera, manipulation of images in the darkroom, and assembly of images for final presentation. Images are accompanied by reflective writing submissions from each participant.

Established in January 2009, Prairie Gallery extends the reach of artmaking to communities generally sheltered from the arts. The Gallery develops projects to enrich the arts with a greater range of artistic voices and bridges disparate social and economic communities within Cincinnati through the universal language of artistic expression.