Opening Reception: October 4, 6-9pm
Artist Talk: October 5, 2pm

State of the City brings together a range of artists from various backgrounds and artistic practices. Each of the projects featured in this exhibition examine different cultures, communities, and stories that make up the city of Rochester.

2019 marks the return of RoCo's State of the City exhibitions. First launched in 2008, this occasional series of exhibitions and projects brings together artists who document and explore Upstate NY cities. State of the City exhibitions feature local, emerging, established, and internationally known artists creative professionals  who consider the history and envision the future of our cities.

State of the City is presented as part of Current Seen, the small-venue biennial for contemporary art.

About the Artists

Artists Sustainability Survey (ASS/ Reb Ayşe Geduk, Gary Lamaar and Ray Ray Mitrano) is a recent project dedicated to engaging working artists in Rochester, NY on their value in pay, community relationships, space accessibility, and overall experience in our creative workplace. Initial questions were formed by a group of Rochester artists and are continuing to be shaped by others throughout this process.

Reb Ayşe Geduk (Rochester, NY) is a multi-disciplinary artist working with process-heavy mediums to uncover new truths about her ideas on identity. Through installation, often using photographic methods, sculptural techniques, fabric and plant-based dyes, she references experience, ancestry and a fascination with the mystical. Reb has personally turned to her art as a way of healing trauma and is constantly working to provide better access to all, especially other POC and LGBTQ+ artists. All around the city of Rochester she teaches affordable workshops, curates free First Friday events and organizes with different artists to discuss ways to make our work more sustainable. @reb_ayse

Gary Lamaar (Rochester, NY) is a musical jack-of-all-trades. As a staple of the Rochester music scene he has shown himself to be a competent, if not exceptionable, drummer, keyboardist, producer, bandleader, DJ, rapper, and arranger. His most fulfilling pursuit is composition, whether it be scoring film, penning lyrics, or crafting songs. His personal vision often results in art that explores the themes of freedom and self-worth. It is his intention that listeners be reminded of how important, how necessary, how unique and indispensable they are. Recently this intention has aligned itself with the Artist Sustainability Survey, a questionnaire that encourages local artists to see themselves as an integral part of a free and healthy society. @garylamaar

Ray Ray Mitrano (Rochester, NY) is immersed in social practice art, crafting unexpected encounters and people based situations with playful approaches. Ray Ray explores the merging of civics and art through several organizations, institutions, and collaborative work in Rochester, NY and abroad. He strives to cultivate engagement on a local level; bringing creativity into strategizing community based initiatives and activism. His social art and organizing can be found intersecting Rochester grassroots radio on WAYO 104.3 FM, amidst public space advocacy, and woven into various businesses, groups, and campaigns. @rayraymitrano

Meredith Davenport (Rochester, NY) earned her MFA from Hunter College and her BFA from Rochester Institute
of Technology. Her documentary projects have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times and on the cover of Newsweek magazine. She was a location producer and videographer in Colombia for the highly acclaimed HBO documentary "Child Soldiers”. She was invited to do a fellowship at Yaddo. She has received a Pew Fellowship and a Puffin Foundation grant. Her work has been exhibited in New York at the International Center of Photography and at Union Docs in Brooklyn. She is the recipient of a fellowship from the Everson Museum in Syracuse and New York Foundations of the Arts Mark award. Her book "Theater of War" is published by Intellect Press and is distributed by the University of Chicago Press. She is an Associate Professor of Photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Michael Goldman/Consolidated Studios (San Francisco, CA / b. Rochester, NY) is an artist and designer whose career combines experience as a sculptor and graphic artist and work as an art director designing scenery on film and television productions. Michael holds a bachelor of science from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, focusing on art history, photography and architecture, he completed further undergraduate studies at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City and finally acquired a Masters Degree in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. Michael has been a resident at the Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, WA. Goldman’s current art project’s include; Red Means Stop a “Texters” stop sign permanently installed in San Francisco at the Hayes Valley Artworks Sculpture Garden. His Urban Pictogram Graphic Guide & Signs series has been strategically placed around San Francisco for the last five years and shown in galleries in Cumberland, MD, Poughkeepsie, NY, Denver, CO, San Francisco, Santa Clara & Pacifica, CA. Articles about the series can be found online at, Artist’s Portfolio Magazine, Medium.com, The SFist and hoodline.com.

David Hammond (Brooklyn, NY / b. Rochester, NY) is a freelance photographer, born and raised in Rochester NY. Though transient poor, moving every year or so David felt most at home and lived the majority of his childhood off Saint Paul Blvd. Along with his twin brother Jonathan, he was inspired by Audubon books and their grandmother to learn about and explore the Genesee river gorge. Beginning in his teens and continuing through college, he photographed the natural environment, the community surrounding the Genesee River in downtown Rochester. David was in and out of the foster care system before attending Rochester Institute Of Technology where he completed his BFA in Photographic Illustration. David has exhibited at Rochester Institute of Technology, Visual Studies Workshop, and Studio 180. His work is semi-biographical working within the practice of documentary photography. David's work explores the cultural landscape, the African diaspora, social histories, natural history and other contemporary issues.

Richmond Futch Jr. (Rochester, NY) is a self-taught artist who works in all disciplines. He is a life long learner attending art workshops with the Figure Study Guild. Richmond is represented by Roc City Art Agency and a resident artist for the French Quarter Restaurant and AVIV Gallery at Bethel Christian Fellowship. In 2006 Futch started A.R.T.S (Artistically Revealing The Spirit) a ministry that promotes the recovery of the imagination thru creativity. In 2017 Richmond opened the Revelation Rochester ART Center, where he offers free art opportunities to veterans, the homeless and low-income residents in the City of Rochester at St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality. Richmond also volunteers at St. Joseph’s House on a weekly basis as well as severing on the community board. His artwork has been featured in numerous local publications including the Democrat and Chronicle, Metropolitan, BREAKTHRU Magazine, Rochester Magazine, City Paper and WXXI Arts in Focus. His works are in many private and public collections around the world. Locally he is known as a Worship Painter.