Culture crops

Oxford community members are invited to submit photographs of local food as part of an upcoming exhibition at the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum at Miami University (RCCAM). “Culture Crops: Ohio’s Secret Gardens & Hidden Food Histories” is the title of the exhibition, which will be displayed at RCCAM from Jan. 27 to June 6, 2026.

Submit up to three photos that you have taken of fresh food that you have grown, sourced locally, cooked or otherwise encountered here in Oxford. To accompany the photos, write a brief statement that captures the connection between you and your photograph of local food, in other words, why the food in the photo is important to you. Ron Stevens, Director of Miami’s Phillips Art Center, is coordinating the assembly of the community photographs.

Submit photos and statements online by Dec. 1. I’ve found three websites that work: 

• tinyurl.com/sp26ccphotos
• https://miamioh.edu/cca/news-events/2025/10/community-photo-exhibition-call-for-submissions.html
• https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfbEOgh1zARjburOJpU7DNDwy5B4G1F2yuMbbSLq0Dyl9kENw/viewform

I have hundreds of photographs of local food, thanks to 13 years of writing this weekly column and co-editing MOON Co-op’s weekly MOONbeams newsletter. So I asked for some guidance from RCCAM Director Jack Green and RCCAM Curator of Exhibitions Jason Shaiman, as well as from Stevens.

Photos need to be attached to the submission form in jpeg format. My irrelevant aside: I learned the difference between jpg and jpeg. “JPEG” is an abbreviation for “Joint Photographic Experts Group,” but in the early years of computing all extensions had to comprise three letters, hence “JPG.” Today, the three- and four-letter versions are interchangeable, although my computer files the two extensions separately within my several directories related to local food.

The organizers plan to use the selected photos in two ways. Some will be mounted and framed by the organizers (not by you, hence submitted in jpeg format), and they will be hung in the Oxford Community Arts Center during May. Others will be combined into a large banner or collage that will hang in RCCAM for the entire four-plus months of the Culture Crops exhibition.

The photographs must have been taken in Ohio and within a 50-mile radius of Oxford. That distance extends north to Darke County, east to Clinton County and south to the Ohio River. The “Ohio” constraint relates to a Buckeye Impact Grant received by RCCAM for the exhibition from the America 250-Ohio Commission, which is leading Ohio’s observance of the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026.

I asked organizers for their thoughts concerning the content of photographs beyond the broad statements in the call for community submissions. I asked Green if the pictures accompanying this column were suitable for consideration, and the response was yes, they would be appropriate. Because many photos will be interspersed either in the banner or along OCAC’s walls, the organizers are hoping to receive a mix of photos that emphasize people here in the Oxford community and photos that emphasize food that has been grown locally.

Culture Crops: Ohio’s Secret Gardens & Hidden Food Histories is based on photographs by Cincinnati artist Tina Gutierrez, who made site visits to Indigenous, immigrant and community and family farmers in this area. The term “secret” in the title of the exhibition conveys the message that her photographs display people who produce for their own consumption rather than for sale. She describes herself on her website as “an ‘Art Instigator’ who encourages communities and individuals to create in ways that are healing to others and to themselves.”

James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.