Contested Ground

The Art Academy of Cincinnati is pleased to present Contested Ground, a Fotofocus Biennial exhibition by AAC alums Taylor Dorrell and Cody Perkins.

About the Artists:

Taylor Dorrell earned a BFA in photography from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2017. Taylor is a freelance writer and photographer, contributing writer at the Cleveland Review of Books, reporter at the Columbus Free Press, columnist at Matter News, and organizer in the Freelance Solidarity Project union. (www.taylordorrell.com)

Cody Perkins was born in Kentucky in 1995. He went on to study photography and received his BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2018. Perkins has exhibited his work in the US and abroad, including work in shows at Praxis Gallery in Minneapolis, at Unseen Gallery in Amsterdam, and at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati. Perkins currently lives and works in the Greater Cincinnati area. (www.codyperkins.net)

About the Exhibition: Contested Ground is a photo series of landscapes and portraits by Art Academy of Cincinnati alumni photographers Taylor Dorrell and Cody Perkins, which takes on the spatial impact of the Amazon facilities in Greater Cincinnati. Economic investments are often relegated to abstract numbers and historical parallels, both relying on an obscure notion of time. As workers at these facilities are engaged in a struggle to unionize, abstract issues are brought into the material world. These massive facilities are built in spaces that people interact with every day, transforming highways, roads, and individual lives.

Through color photography, Contested Ground mixes the economic, spatial, and class dynamics of the Amazon boom, while employees in the Northern Kentucky facility seek union recognition and a fair contract.

To learn more about Fotofocus and the 2024 Fotofocus Biennial, backstories, visit

https://www.fotofocus.org/biennial/2024/