“Print Voices from Kenya: Social and Cultural Reflections” brings Kenyan art, film and culture to Cincinnati

Saad Ghosn was three weeks out from opening night and still didn’t know if one of the artists he most wanted in the room would be allowed into the country.

“He’s having difficulty getting a visa,” said Ghosn, founder and curator of Cincinnati non-profit SOS ART .

He was talking about James Mweu, a Nairobi-based printmaker, dancer, choreographer and yoga teacher, and the one Kenyan artist Ghosn had invited to Cincinnati for an exhibition he’d spent the last year building. Mweu applied for a visa interview months ago. The embassy gave him a date in mid-August, six weeks after the exhibition opens.Since then, Ghosn has been working contacts in Kenya trying to move it up. He still doesn’t know if it will work.

“Printed Voices from Kenya: Social and Cultural Reflections” opens June 27 at Kennedy Heights Arts Center and runs through August 22. The exhibition features 154 prints by 42 Kenyan artists and marks the fifth installment of a biennial series Ghosn has curated since 2017 through SOS ART.

Each exhibition centers artists from a different country documenting their own social, cultural and political realities. Oaxaca came first, followed by Lebanon, Czechia and India. This year, for the first time, the focus shifts to Africa.

Ghosn is a printmaker himself, a woodcut artist who founded SOS ART 24 years ago around a simple idea: art can be a vehicle for peace and justice. The series grew out of a 2015 trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, where Ghosn watched artists use printmaking to document political life in real time. He returned to Cincinnati looking for a long-term partner. Kennedy Heights Arts Center said yes in 2016.

Kenya came into focus through Cincinnati friend Jamey Ponte, founder of the Kibera Arts District and House of Friends Gallery in Nairobi. Ponte helped Ghosn build relationships with artists on the ground and navigate a city he was still learning himself. While researching the exhibition, the pair also mounted a parallel exhibition in Kibera featuring more than 300 works by over 100 local artists.

Ghosn isn’t looking for technical perfection or what might simply look beautiful on a wall. He’s looking for work that tells him something true.

The artists explore Kenya’s 2024 Gen Z protests and the police violence that followed. They examine the lingering effects of colonization on land and labor. They document the movement of rural Kenyans into Nairobi’s informal settlements in search of opportunities the city was never designed to absorb.

Again and again, women appear throughout the exhibition: mothers,  vendors and caretakers. The people holding families together while, as more than one artist told Ghosn, the men around them are often given permission to simply enjoy themselves.

In one series, artist Brian Kimani traces colonial-era labor restrictions into the geography of modern-day Nairobi, arguing the city’s informal settlements were never accidental. They were built upon earlier systems of control.

Mallory Feltz, director of exhibitions and public art at Kennedy Heights Arts Center, has been part of the partnership since almost the beginning. Ghosn approached then-executive director Ellen Muse in 2016 looking for a venue willing to make a long-term commitment.

“A major international art show is located in a community art center, outside of a larger institution which may be intimidating for some people,” Feltz said.

The center remains free and open to the public, making the exhibition accessible to anyone who walks through the doors.

As of this week, Mweu’s status remains unresolved. Ghosn continues working contacts in Kenya to see whether the interview date can be expedited.

It would be easy to dismiss the visa delay as a logistical inconvenience. Except it lands too close to the exhibition’s own subject matter to ignore. An exhibition documenting movement, labor, confinement and systems of power is now waiting to learn whether one of its own artists will be allowed to cross a border and see his work hanging on the wall.

Whether James Mweu will be standing in the room on opening night remains an open question.

“Print Voices from Kenya: Social and Cultural Reflections” opens Saturday, June 27 and runs through August 22, 2026. Upcoming events include:

• An opening reception June 27 from 6 to 8 p.m. including Kenyan music and snacks.
• A Kenyan cultural festival July 11 from noon to 6 p.m. with dance, music, poetry, food and tours led by Ghosn.
• A curator’s tour July 15 from 10 a.m. to noon led by Ghosn.
• These events are located at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center, 6546 Montgomery Road, in Kennedy Heights.

The Kenyan Movie Festival is screening “A Small Act,” “Nairobi Half Life” and “Rafiki.” Each movie is followed by a discussion on August 2, 9 and 16 from 2 to 5 p.m. The movie festival is located at the Esquire Theatre, 320 Ludlow Avenue, in Clifton.

Tickets: All events are free. For hours and more details, visit SOS ART.