FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, October 14, 2026

National Socially Engaged Art Convening Comes to Cincinnati

CINCINNATI, Ohio — THROUGHLINES is a socially engaged art convening emerging from the legacies of Common Field,Open Engagement, and Hand in Glove. Planned in conversation with participants and organizers of these past gatherings, THROUGHLINES continues the spirit, energy, and spaces of support the field needs. THROUGHLINES 2027 will take place October 8–10 at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and a constellation of sites throughout the city.

Art that acts in the world, within and alongside its communities, is needed. The people who make it need a place to convene, to be cared for, and to imagine what comes next, but the gatherings where artists found one another and shared resources have all closed. The institutions and funding that social practices rely on are under strain, and the artists doing this work are increasingly isolated. THROUGHLINES gathers the field back together to rebuild its networks, so that the histories, relationships, and knowledge it holds are carried forward. Amidst a changing institutional, cultural, and political landscape, the convening asks: What do socially engaged artists do today? What do socially engaged artists need today? Where does socially engaged art go from here?

Throughlines is the convening’s title, its theme, and its program design process. As a title, it marks continuity: the gatherings that held this field together have closed, but what they carried persists in the work of the people who made them. As a theme, it asks what runs through the field and carries it forward: concerns, commitments, and methods that recur across generations and outlast projects and institutions. As a process, it determines how its content is built: a committee of artists reads the proposals, identifies the throughlines that run across them, and shapes the program around those.

“Socially engaged art” is a starting point; the work of participating artists will define its meaning.

Keynote speakers include renowned artists Tania Brugeura, Mel Chin, and Caroline Woolard.

THROUGHLINES 2027 is co-organized by the Art Academy of Cincinnati and Wave Pool, with advisory support from Jen de los Reyes, and funding from the Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation.

Organizing partners and advisors in addition to those named above include Springboard for the Arts, Harvard University, United States Artists, Wagner Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Po()inator, Public Media Institute, and A Blade of Grass.

Organizers plan for THROUGHLINES to be an annual convening rotating among sites around the country. Future sites are not yet confirmed.

About Wave Pool

Wave Pool is an artist-founded, artist-led, and artist-serving arts nonprofit in Camp Washington, Cincinnati, established in 2014. The organization invests in artists who engage with life outside traditional art spaces, offering incubation of artists’ initiatives, professional development, residencies, fabrication facilities, and employment. Over 12 years Wave Pool has worked with over 700 artists, reached more than 120,000 people through hundreds of projects, and catalyzed Camp Washington’s transformation into a creative district.

About the Art Academy of Cincinnati

Art Academy of Cincinnati, established in 1869, is an independent college of art and design. Degrees granted are the Associate of Science in Graphic Design; the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Design, Illustration, Painting and Drawing, Photography, Print Media, Digital Arts Animation and Sculpture; and the Master of Arts in Art Education. Accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD), the Art Academy is a charter member of both NASAD and the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. AAC is also accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education. The AAC’s mission is to create and sustain radical, forward thinking, contemporary visual artists and designers whose creative contributions make a substantial difference in all the lives they touch.