River, Red
Ahmed Ozsever
November 6-25, 2026
Exhibition opening and Book Release Event: November 6, 6-9pm
Free and open to the public
Aurora PhotoCenter, Efroymson Gallery
1125 Brookside Avenue, Suite C9, Indianapolis
Ahmed Ozsever’s series River, Red is a visual art and research project that observes the space created by natural river migration. The project explores concepts of time as made evident in land, the malleability of human imposed borders, and the contrasting temporalities that can be perceived in nature and those that are human constructs.
Ozsever writes of the project, “I visited the Red River and traversed the space between the current location of the river and the recorded location of the river as of 1923, when the southern bank was legally declared the border between Texas and Oklahoma. Since then, intense erosion and accretion have caused the river to move by upwards of one mile in any respective direction in certain areas. This differential has incited disputes over private property, state borders, and Indigenous Land. River, Red, seeks to visually quantify the space that we are unable to anticipate by documenting both the natural and human-made landscapes that I encounter in that space.”
River, Red will be published by Bridge Books (Chicago) for release in October 2026. It's an image/text project that examines the movement of the rivers over a one-hundred-year period. The book features photographs made while walking the land created by the movement of the Red River, Ozsever’s written reflections, and manipulated archival documents that officially declared the river a border. Together, these materials combine to visualize and imagine a deeper, slower timeline where the long-term relationship between humans and the environment can be felt and imagined.
Ozsever will be present in the gallery for the November 6 opening and will have copies of the River, Red book for sale and to sign.
Ahmed Ozsever (he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist who works in photography, installation, time-based media, sculpture, and text. His work is geographically focused and responds to the spatial anomalies, as well as the hidden histories of a given location. He works from the perspective that the conditions of the Anthropocene are the result of humans’ inability to comprehend time scales that extend beyond ourselves. Specifically, the climate crisis is a crisis of imagination, resulting from the shortcomings of living on a clock that keeps people locked into short-term thinking, rather than seeing life on a broader timeline. From this position, he creates visual and textual works inspired by direct experience of land, while also referencing the traditions and technologies by which we depict landscapes and shape collective knowledge about place.
Ozsever earned his BFA from Herron School of Art and Design at IU Indianapolis and received his MFA from Cornell University. He lives and works in Bloomington, IN, where he holds the position of Assistant Professor of Creative Core (art and design foundations) in the Eskenazi School or Art, Architecture, and Design at Indiana University Bloomington. Ahmed’s independent and collaborative works have been exhibited throughout the US at venues including the South Bend Museum of Art, the Indiana State Museum, Visual Arts Gallery at University of Illinois Springfield, Pilot Projects in Philadelphia, PA, station923 in Ithaca, NY, and Site109 in New York City, among others.
Annual operating support for Aurora PhotoCenter provided by the City of Indianapolis through the Indy Arts Council. Additional annual support provided by the Efroymson Family Fund, Joy of Giving Something Foundation, Inc., Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Indiana Arts Commission, Aurora Members, and donors who believe in Aurora’s mission.