Call for Entry Highlight: Another First Impression

For the 2024 iteration, FotoFocus announced a new Biennial initiative: Call for Entry Selections. These six selected projects highlight talent from the region’s artists and curators as part of the first large-scale regional Call for Entry in the Biennial’s history. Each month leading up to the Biennial, a Call for Entry project will be highlighted. Learn more about Another First Impression, presented by MIDTONES and curated by Asa Featherstone IV. This project will be on view September 27, 2024–November 1, 2024 at Art Academy of Cincinnati: SITE1212.

Another First Impression is the first public project presented by MIDTONES, a creative print and digital platform led by Asa Featherstone IV that supports Black and Brown visual artists in the Midwest. The platform seeks to highlight the nuances within the region through the presentation of an annual magazine, gallery exhibitions, and collaborative activations that blend photography, essays, and interviews across various themes.

Serving as a welcome mat, the exhibition extends an opportunity to rediscover and reconnect with communities, both familiar and unknown. It invites the viewer to see the world through new eyes, to celebrate differences, and to recognize the strength that lies within the heart of every community.

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By: Asa Featherstone IV
The Midwest and First Impressions

I recently spoke with a Japanese exchange student at the skatepark who was spending a semester in Cincinnati, Ohio. He told me he chose to live in Cincinnati by accident, never having heard of it before. He liked that it was inexpensive, but thought it was boring, not at all how he imagined America to be. He was hoping to be closer to California. However, after spending more time with locals, he began to warm up to the place and its people.

That conversation was one of the inspirations behind creating MIDTONES, a new platform that supports lens-based artists of color exploring life on the margins in the Midwest, a region historically viewed through a limited lens.

The Midwest has long been seen as average in the U.S., always playing runner-up to the coasts. Little is understood about it because little is sought out. It’s known for Appalachia, farmland, low living costs, swing states, and segregation. Hardly any of those traits address anything about life as a person of color in the Midwest, at least not with any nuance. If we can be honest with each other, it’s because the region has historically been centered around whiteness. Even with as much as we’ve pushed for equitable spaces, today the Midwest is still home to six of the top 10 most segregated cities in the country.

As a BIPOC Midwesterner, I feel it. I’ve often thought that we have a complex identity that hardly gets addressed because we’re all lumped into a single category that simply… exists. We’re floating in a zone of anonymity, as our experiences are read as inauthentic—both to our white regional counterparts and those within our race but outside of the Midwest. We miss out on so many meaningful stories because we fail to be curious about the people who anchor our cultures. That’s probably a bigger conversation for another time.

So, let’s talk about the art.

Left: Yasmin Yassin, Dhaanto, 2022. Digital photograph, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist; Right: Asa Featherstone, IV, black, 2023. Digital photograph, 24 x 20 inches. Courtesy of the artist

MIDTONES as a platform isn’t seeking pity, we’re just shifting the focus onto something that has always existed. The platform showcases BIPOC Midwestern experiences through an annual magazine, gallery exhibitions, and collaborations featuring photography, essays, and interviews that highlight the value of our stories.

The first public exhibition presented by MIDTONES is titled Another First Impression, and features artists from Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh (yes, our Rust Belt neighbors) whose work shines a light on communities outside of the mainstream Midwest. It serves as a re-introduction to a place and people we may have made assumptions about due to our lack of exposure.

The idea has always been to showcase a blend of experiences and photographic techniques to reflect the vastness of the lives we live. This first exhibition features Yasmin Yassin’s documentary photographs of Somali cultural preservation through dance in Minneapolis, Da’Shaunae Marisa’s portraits of a classic car crew in Cleveland, Elijah Barnes’ conceptual work on freedom, and Andrea Sabugo’s fashion editorial photographs about perceptions of Latin culture in the U.S., among a number of other artist projects.

MIDTONES is not just a snapshot, but a promise to provide a space for the narratives and voices that have always existed and deserve a microphone. This exhibition serves as a welcome mat, extending an opportunity to connect with both the familiar and the unknown. We’re here to paint possibility—for artists, the marginalized population, and surrounding institutions— to be challenged, honor differences, and support our communities with authenticity.

TL;DR:
MIDTONES supports BIPOC visual storytellers, both of which are here for a good and long time.