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Diane Callahan, who co-curated “Spirit & Dust” alongside Michelle Burdine, traced the genesis of the new Urban Arts Space exhibition back to the first Death Cafe…
See how Ohio State has embraced experiential learning and community engagement through the arts—including with Urban Arts Space's Community Engagement Internship Program, funded by the Mellon…
In conceiving “We Just Still,” curators Iyana Hill and Jonathan Johnson said that Raymonn “Sugar Ray” Daniels was the first name that sprung to mind, the longtime Columbus airbrush artist having…
Fourth-grade students from Bexley’s Cassingham Elementary School and Columbus’ Shady Lane Elementary School met recently at John Bishop Park in Whitehall to celebrate the unveiling of a mural they…
"We Just Still" highlights creativity and innovation in an immersive experience.
Airbrush and visual artist Raymonn "Sugar Ray" Daniels shares some background on his exhibit. He's joined by…
The Urban Arts Space is highlighting up-and-coming artists.
Whether it's connecting to nature through movement, or preserving sacred traditions, two shows happening this month are sure to…
Homing: Site Reflections is a collaborative project by Katherine G. Moore and Kathryn Nusa Logan that examines how people connect with landscapes through sound, movement, and…
As a Community Engagement Intern at Urban Arts Space (UAS), I have spent my spring semester learning about the arts scene in Columbus and how Ohio State as a university supports it through UAS…
The hot summer season brings exciting perspectives in overlooked ways: through nature, the body, and identity. Urban Arts Space is enthusiastic to announce four multimedia exhibitions between May…
As Urban Arts Space Community Engagement Interns, our days commonly feature site visits and collaborations with various arts and culture organizations around Columbus. My first site visit earlier…
More than 100 undergraduate students at The Ohio State University have worked as “externs” with area arts organizations since 2023, when the university received $2 million from the Mellon…
Displayed at the Ohio History Center, the traveling exhibit Queens of the Heartland highlights African American women from Ohio, spanning the 1830s to today. It features their photos,…
Urban Arts Space is excited to welcome the newest member of our team—Dr. Xiaoxiao Bao, our Community Learning and Experience Specialist!
Xiaoxiao arrived in Columbus in 2019 after a seven…
Collage is an art rooted in disruption. It resists singular narratives, building from preexisting fragments and making space for complexity, contradiction, and the unlikely artist. That spirit was…
In this hectic world we live in today, it is important to have spaces that ground and remind us of the interconnectedness we share with one another. That may entail your favorite local café, a…
Urban Arts Space’s Community Artist-in-Residence, Tyiesha Radford Shorts, shares five of her essential reads connected to her expertise in Black Appalachian studies. From academic essays and…
COLUMBUS, OH, FEBRUARY 9, 2026 – Waiting for the Light to Change features bodies of work shaped by curiosity, reflection, and critical engagement with the world around us. This Master of…
796 Innocents by Mia Sweeney Gahrmann takes its title from the 796 babies and young children whose remains were discovered in 2017 at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in…
“I was a Columbus City Schools kid myself, and as somebody who has always enjoyed the arts … you want to do anything you can to fuel that interest,” January said, pointing to obstacles such as…
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — Seniors in the Ohio State University art department want you to celebrate their graduation.
Watch the full interview segment on WSYX!
Art becomes a mirror for being: a space where identities can stretch, fracture, heal, and reform. Urban Arts Space (UAS) is proud to present Artist Commune: Being and Belonging, an…
As someone who hasn’t touched a poetry book in years, my first glimpse into Laura Da’s newest poetry collection, Severalty, threw me for a loop. I will use the statement I often hear from…
“Really, the spirit of the exhibition is taking each stanza of the poem and … allowing it to become almost a room,” said Da’, whose exhibit opened earlier this week and continues through Nov. 15. “So…
“We enter the poem from a place of inquiry, ‘Why Lazarus.’ More than a question, the title hints at a possible lament, an explanation, an outcry to an ancestor or…
Autumn seems to be one of the most festive and busiest times of the year. Whether you are a student in school, a full-time worker, or anywhere in between, this time of year can feel like you never…
Urban Arts Space is thrilled to announce that Dr. Terron Banner has been appointed as the organization’s new Director, bringing his commitment to community and his expertise in arts administration…
We’re taught in school about Ohio’s role as a free state, but what were the experiences of those who risked their lives to reach our borders? What happened once they made it to the river?
The Columbus writers will celebrate the release of their new collection with a poetry collage party at Urban Arts Space on Saturday, Sept. 20.
The Ship and the Storm, a new…
Multidisciplinary artist Keya Crenshaw is a native of Columbus, Ohio. Keya is the founder of Black Chick Media, LLC and the Scared Spaces Collective. Keya’s work, Cypress, Camellias, Magnolias…
"'Restless Office' is an exhibit that looks at a new type of office, hopefully an office of the future, in response to the current conditions of the office," Nowak said. "We know that the hybrid…
Based in Brooklyn, New York, Michael Hambouz is a multidisciplinary artist and musician who creates a variety of intricate and abstracted works ranging from prints and sculptures to animations…
"A daughter / observes until her eyes are blood-thick with / history," writes Ajanaé Dawkins in Blood-Flex, the author's debut chapbook. In this collection, Dawkins dissolves the clouded…
The Urban Arts Space Music Collective is a collaborative Spotify project. We create playlists that incorporate specific genres of music, music history, record labels, new album releases,…
A pair of exhibitions opened at Urban Arts Space this week are divided by a border, of sorts, with “Fragmented-Recaptured” staged in the upper gallery space and “
“My loneliness demands my attention too. I tend to it the best I can.” — Michelle Herman
In her latest book, If You Say So, Michelle Herman takes us through a…
Our newest Community Artist-in-Residence, Tyiesha Radford Shorts, was interviewed by Urban Arts Space Intern Sarah Jenkins for Columbus Underground!
"I am on a journey to reorient…
In late May, I was approached by the senior staff at Urban Arts Space. There wasn’t an Artist Commune event for June planned and they wanted an intern to plan the event. I…
"My practice is rooted in a deep respect for the body, for color, and for the emotional weight both can carry. I create work that celebrates Blackness and womanness with intention, clarity, and…
In some ways, the exhibition serves as a visual representation of the divide that exists between Herman’s fiction work and her collections of nonfiction essays, with the gallery split between oil…
Community Connectors is a monthly series highlighting Ohio State staff members who have shown leadership in partnering with our communities to make an impact.
…
Ohio: A State of Dance is a dynamic, multimedia exhibition that invites visitors to explore the rich and diverse history of dance across the state of Ohio. Through the OhioDance Virtual…
Tyiesha Radford Shorts has begun to prepare for her future artist-in-residency stint at Urban Arts Space by looking to the past.
An educator, writer and multidisciplinary artist, Shorts has…
“I had a deep fixation with witnessing the women in my life, the women who raised me, and seeing their interiority and their relationship with the world, and then thinking about our relationship,”…
“I want to make work about anger and grief, but also falling in love,” Martin said. “And those are things that have always been present in my work in some way, but I noticed the more I create, the…
Urban Arts Space is proud to launch the Artist Commune Journal, a community arts publication. The inaugural issue—centered on the theme of Care/Culture/Justice—amplifies twenty-five…
History, art, and activism converge in the works of Urban Arts Space’s newest Community Artist-in-Residence, Tyiesha Radford Shorts. The UAS Community Artist-in-Residence program is now…
Love, grief, resilience, and dance: these universal themes can shape our most transformative summers. For the summer of 2025, we welcome you to explore these themes through the five…
Design is inherently political through its unique ability to change the social, cultural, economic, and structural systems of our lives, so why do we limit the job of a designer to something…
The Department of Art Auxiliary Faculty and Staff Exhibition at Hopkins Hall Gallery was featured in Ohio State News! Read the full article for interviews with artists Kate Durham and…
Watch the full feature about Artist Commune: Intersections on Lantern TV, featuring interviews with our Manager of Community Learning and Experience, Dr. Terron Banner, as well as Professional…
The upcoming Urban Arts Space exhibition Vessels in Red boldly invites the audience to feel without fear—unapologetically and without restraint. Through a landscape of red-toned…
"Can I catch all flying things, arrest them, and not stop them, heaven by design, and not by Raphael or Poussin, by me and painted air, all things moving in my sky…" wrote Syd Solomon in a poem in…
Dr. Terron Banner has served as Urban Art Space’s Manager of Community Learning and Experience for over three years. From live events to virtual exhibitions, Dr. Banner’s presence has been vital…
In the fall of 2024, I had a fantastic opportunity to observe a workshop on conducting research and archiving history through poetry. I never considered myself a poet before, but this workshop…
Andrew Mehall is a Master of Fine Arts candidate at The Ohio State University whose work meditates on our relationships with technology, memory, and authorship. Constructed from found objects and…
Annelise Duque is a Filipino-American artist, currently an MFA graduate student at The Ohio State University, and one of thirteen artists featured in Desire Lines, the MFA…
Grief, loss, and mourning are central to life and Isabella Saraceni's work. As she explores the fragility of life through various materials of the same nature, she hopes to create navigational…
"What I really want people to take away from the show is that transgender joy and resilience is something that's part of the human experience and it has been probably for as long as we've been…
"The overall triptych in its entirety has a forefront of celebrating Black trans bodies, but it also talks about this idea of creating space for Black bodies to be nurturing, soft and vulnerable,"…
Julian Robbins is a multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges digital and physical realms, exploring themes of identity, history, and storytelling. Their current installation features inkjet…
On October 24, 2024, I had the honor of attending two conversation panels about Ming Smith at the Wexner Center for the Arts for the Lambert Photography Symposium. As a visual…
COLUMBUS, OH – February 17–28, 2025 – What happens when artistic practice and academic inquiry collide? The trace layer play collective invites you to witness, explore, and engage…
We’re enthusiastic to share that our Community Artist-in-Residence Ajanaé Dawkins has been awarded the prestigious Elizabeth George Foundation Grant! This is a highly selective opportunity that…
Established in 1923, the Ohio State Faculty Club has been the home for many local artists’ exhibitions throughout the years. This month, it opened its doors to display a historic…
If you ask the AI system DALL-E to generate an Impressionist oil painting of sunflowers in a purple vase, the results surprisingly vary wildly. With results ranging from blue vases to yellow…
The mixed media piece under ohio stars collects stories, traits, and traditions passed down through generations into a tangible scene. In between shifts as the Administrative Assistant at…
Urban Arts Space is excited to share that our inaugural Community Artist-in-Residence, Arris' Cohen, and our Manager of Community Learning and Experience, Dr. Terron Banner, will be exhibiting in…
In her debut poetry collection, Good Dress, Brittany Rogers displays a masterful economy of language, able to capture complex generational relationship dynamics in just a few keyboard…
“It’s difficult to photograph Appalachia without falling into the ruts of these powerful images that have long been used to show outsiders what the region is and who its people are. … [To] be…
As you walk into Urban Arts Space’s October exhibition with_, your eye is drawn to various colors, mediums, shapes, and sounds. There…
Iyana Hill is a recent graduate of The Ohio State University, double majoring in Photography and African American and African Studies, and minoring in Arts Entrepreneurship. In this Broad & High…
This episode of Broad & High highlights Urban Arts Space Community Artist-in-Residence Ajanaé Dawkins. She has grown from the teenager telling stories at a poetry slam to the docu-poet she is…
This is the first story in a Broad & High series called Behind the Scenes: Art Across Ohio. In this episode, Broad & High highlights Urban Arts Space intern Iyana HIll and Community Artist-in…
This fall, Urban Arts Space is delighted to welcome back Community Artists-in-Residence Arris’ J. Cohen and Ajanaé Dawkins to continue their residencies through early 2025. Both artists will…
If you're fortunate enough to visit the Peter Megert Memorial Exhibition on the campus of The Ohio State University this autumn, you may think that its purpose is simply to showcase highlights…
A month after Peter Megert died at age 85 in June 2022, Oscar Fernandez, an associate professor in the School of Design at the University of Cincinnati, scheduled a call with colleagues across the…
"[Peter] was a wave of fresh air, of joy, of humor," Professor Axel Roesler of the University of Washington said in a recent interview with The Lantern. "He would never follow the…
A loud murmuring runs through the gallery; voices from one end of the space travel up to the ears of those walking down the lucent corridor. As visitors enter, they are greeted by dozens…
You can't take it with you… is currently on view at Hopkins Hall Gallery until September 27, 2024. The exhibition is inspired by the chaos in our lives, ranging from everyday…
A new water-themed printmaking exhibit — titled "You can't take it with you.." — has taken center stage at Hopkins Hall Gallery.
The exhibition, which opened Thursday and will be on view…
"The Ohio State Urban Arts Space hosts Totes on Town, a community event within their series Artist Commune. Ohio State students help host the event for the community every month. This…
Local artist Aleesha Nash shares her interview with Kristen Newby during her Preserving Your History workshop.
As we enter the final week of my exhibition,
“From empathy, Megert knew, came great design.”
Peter Megert (1937–2022), a remarkable Ohio State Design former professor, is the subject of an upcoming exhibition at the Hopkins Hall…
Women’s Work reimagines the inherent meaning of femininity and power. Reclaiming the disparaging term, artists Alex McClay and Stephanie Berrie present the dichotomy of existing within…
“I want to ensure interns know how to advocate for themselves and make informed decisions when it comes to their careers, and that they have resources to move forward.” — Ashley Martin
Azubuike Akunne grew up with a father who owned a pharmacy in Columbus’ Bronzeville neighborhood, recalling how as a child he observed patients stream in to collect medications for ailments such…
Many designers believe that good design should not call attention to itself. That does not mean, however, that the talent and impact of influential designers and design educators should not be…
"Few things have made this life worthwhile like the people who sit with me, stirred, tender, open and near spiritual encounters over what language can do. Over how the Black writers before us…
"Four years ago, as part of this process, Dawkins brainstormed a series of questions that she wished she could ask all of the women in her family, dead or alive, including: What is your legacy?…
Through travel, higher education and introspection, artist and businessman Azubuike Akunne came to realize that our environments play a crucial role in the lives we lead…
Stirred by witnessing the impact of her great-aunt going missing, poet Ajanaé Dawkins is investigating the myriad ways that Black women go missing or lose themselves amid family archival.
Ajanaé Dawkins, Urban Arts Space’s current Community Artist-in-Residence, is a poet, performer and theologian based in Columbus. Her upcoming exhibition—No One Teaches Us How to…
"When musicians Noah Demland and Sam Johnson first talked about collaborating, a number of their conversations centered on a series of questions: What makes music queer? And can you tell a person…
“The wind opens up these wounds, and it hurts to write these words to you. But I know I have to tell you these truths in this way, understand?” — Tanya Diaz-Kozlowski
What do trauma…
“'Here in the Hale Center, we have one of the largest Black art collections in the United States and we’re also recognized by the Association for Black Culture Centers as one of the top [centers…
"'The show is to really acknowledge the intersection between Black and Palestinian liberation, and also as a reprieve for the amount of work that’s been done specifically in fighting for…
The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, who proclaimed that the enslaved “are, and henceforward shall be free.” Now, why he did that is a…
"Urban Arts Space, part of Ohio State University's College of the Arts, is hosting concurrent exhibitions that illustrate the diverse experiences of people of color.
'FREEQUENCY,' curated by…
"The project's core objective is to establish sustainable support for ongoing programs and initiatives that prioritize co-creation with and within the community. This entails forging and…
Urban Arts Space is excited to share a significant accomplishment by our Manager of Community Learning and Experience: Dr. Terron Banner has secured a $250,000 Global Arts + Humanities Discovery…
"The two also described Afrofuturism as an evolving concept, with Black creators reinterpreting and reclaiming the past and present with an eye on building toward a more empowered future. 'What…
A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back will exhibit at Urban Arts Space from May 21–June 29, 2024, celebrating the works of various artists who collaborated on the 2022 anthology
FREEQUENCY, an exhibition at Urban Arts Space curated by Iyana Hill and April Sunami, features Black artists whose work incorporates elements of the Black aesthetic as envisioned by the…
"Florman said while interning at the Urban Arts Space, students will work on general assignments, but will also be able to specialize in areas like video production, marketing or exhibition design…
The Boy and the Heron, Hayao Miyazaki’s most recent film released this past December, has just won the Academy Award for best animated feature, making it Miyazaki’s fourth nomination and…
This interview was conducted prior to Nico’s performances in January 2024. Please join us in reflecting on Nico’s work in Grieving Landscapes and their collaboration with the…
“The best work of poets I read, in particular, translates something for you to be able to face it and control it… Poetry is an empathic process.” — Roger Robinson
Read the full…
In partnership with the Mellon Foundation, Ohio State will launch bold, far-reaching initiatives involving multiple university units and programs, including the College of Arts and Sciences, Urban…