By Jenny Zeller
On Thursday, September 4, 2025, from 7:30–10:00 pm, Bernheim’s L+A+N+D will transform into an illuminated landscape for a very special Arts in Nature night event!
As part of a statewide traveling exhibition, Portals, Pathways, and the Space Between Us explores placemaking, shapeshifting, and the layered histories of Kentucky through the lens of the Ohio River, a river that has long carried contradictions of both division and freedom, border and connection.
Curated by Sso-Rha Kang, Curator at The Carnegie (Covington, KY), in collaboration with KADIST’s global media archive, the exhibition brings together two curated video works and one sound piece presented across six Kentucky venues. At each stop, Kang integrates a regional artist into the program, adding site-specific resonance to the evolving experience.
At Bernheim, the exhibition will be sited in the heart of L+A+N+D, where outdoor artworks and installations will be dramatically illuminated after dark—creating an immersive way to encounter art in the forest.
Featured Works
- Sora Kim’s Turtle Walk (2010) follows two performers moving through a dense urban landscape, their bodies obscured by large white disks as they navigate brick and concrete pathways.
- Katinka Bock’s Couler un tas de pierres (2007) presents a quiet boat drifting down a wooded river, carrying a mound of rocks in a mysterious meditation on stillness and movement.
- Britni Bicknaver and Brianna Kelly’s River Gaze (2024) layers sounds of rushing water, barges, and canoes into a cinematic score originally composed for the Ohio River.
These works shift with each location, transforming in response to their surroundings—whether projected onto buildings and bridges, echoed along a river, or carried into the forest. At Bernheim, their open-ended qualities will resonate with the illuminated landscape and artwork of L+A+N+D, deepening the dialogue between art, place, and identity.
We are also excited to feature cellist Nora Barton as Bernheim’s regional artist addition to the exhibition. Recently returned to Kentucky after 15 years in Chicago’s dynamic music scene, Barton creates ethereal, experimental soundscapes that explore the transformative power of music.
About the Curator
Sso-Rha Kang is an educator and curator based in Cincinnati, OH. She is currently the Curator of The Carnegie. From 2021–2023 she served as the Director of Galleries and Outreach at Northern Kentucky University, where she curated exhibitions, performances, and cross-disciplinary events. Her research interests delve into institutional critique, blankness, and aesthetic experience. Kang has curated exhibitions at The Carnegie, The Weston, and The Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, OH), with an upcoming exhibition at The Blaffer (Houston, TX). In 2024, she was one of two Consulting Curators for Ohio in the exhibition New Worlds: Women to Watch at the National Museum for Women in the Arts (Washington, DC).
About The Carnegie
The Carnegie is Northern Kentucky’s largest multidisciplinary arts venue, home to The Carnegie Galleries, the Otto M. Budig Theatre, and the Eva G. Farris Education Center. It provides theatre, educational programs, and exhibitions for the Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati community, with generous support from ArtsWave, the Kentucky Arts Council, and other regional foundations and funders.
Event Details:
Date: Thursday, September 4, 2025
Time: 7:30 – 10:00 pm
Location: L+A+N+D at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum
Cost: FREE with $15 Suggested Admission
