Current Exhibitions

The Arc Otsego's VOICE! 22

Martin-Mullen Art Gallery
On view: July 9 - 24, 2026
Summer hours: Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Reception: Thursday, July 9, 2026, 5-6:30 p.m.

VOICE! is an annual juried art exhibition featuring art from across New York State. It celebrates the creative voices of artists with intellectual and other developmental disabilities. VOICE! reminds us of the power of art to transcend disability and stereotypes to reveal our common ground and celebrate our unique abilities. Learn more about the Voice! 22 event and The Arc Otsego.

1000 Cranes

Fine Arts hallway, between the Hamblin Theater and the Martin-Mullen Gallery
On view: April 9, 2026 - May 31, 2027 
Reception: to be announced

Folding a paper crane takes patience and concentration. Once the pattern is learned, the process of carefully aligning and creasing edges is calming and centering. Done in a group it creates community, each person contributing small delicate cranes while collectively creating something beautiful. The folding of paper cranes was first documented in 7th century China. It was developed and made popular in the Edo Period of Japan between the early 1600s to the mid 1800s. The tradition of folding 1,000 paper cranes is known as “Senbazuru” and symbolizes a wish or prayer for good health and good fortune. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and through the work of Sadako Sasaki, who developed leukemia from the bombings, it became a global symbol and prayer for world peace. These 1,000 paper cranes are multi-hued, multi-pattered, and multi-facetted, just like the students, faculty, staff, and community members who folded and strung them. They are accompanied by a few fish and maybe a dragon or two, if you look closely. In the same way that the differences, both great and small, between each crane and creature magnifies their charm and interest, diversity in community is strength and creates great beauty.

Poster design by Savannah Simpson.

Day of the Deer | Alissa Walls

Open Space Gallery 
On view: February 9 – December 13, 2026 
Reception: Thursday, September 24, 5-7 p.m.

Day of the Deer is a year-long, process-oriented installation by artist and art historian, Dr. Alissa Walls (SUNY Oneonta Art Department, Assistant Professor of Art History). It stands as a unique exhibition in that it seeks no clear beginning or end. Over the course of the year, Walls will add new elements each day to inspire people to return often as she transforms the Open Space Gallery into a playful and uncanny environment with sacred offerings, real and representational deer, found and purchased objects, and numerous drawings, prints, painting, sculptures, and projection. This installation breaks material boundaries, encourages play, and invites viewers to broaden their understanding of what art is, how it can be pursued, and what topics it can explore while alluding to the potential to break social, cultural, and ideological barriers. Day of the Deer poses challenging questions about dominant social structures, cultural hierarchies, and the relationship between the natural world and the built environment in the age of the Anthropocene. These topics become approachable and accessible in an atmosphere of creativity, fun, and exploration. Starting with an inspiration from The Fawn in the Forest with No Names from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, Walls employs grids, boxes, and figures and sources from art and natural histories to critique systems of order, offering up the possibility of new ways of being. 

Poster design by Savannah Simpson. Funding Generously provided by the SUNY Oneonta Faculty Research & Creative Activity Grant program.