Alexandra Hulsey doesn't attend the Texas State Fair to see what everyone else sees. She goes to capture what they're not looking at.
"The moments I'm looking for …are happening at the same time as something that's calling for people's attention " said the Dallas-based photographer and curator, whose ongoing body of work centers Fair Park. "What they are not looking at is what I'm trying to find."
Less interested in the spectacle of the largest state fair in the United States, Hulsey's camera is trained on quieter, stranger moments that take place. A plant growing out of a crack in the concrete. The texture of a blue tarp stretched over a booth. The decay on the facade of an Art Deco building.
The resulting images fall into two categories: pictures that are unmistakably captured at the State Fair and pictures so abstract that the viewer might not even know where they were taken.
In January 2026, Hulsey exhibited these photographs at "2 BED ,1 BATH" , a gallery run by Dallas-based artist and curator Ryan Semegran out of their Oak Cliff apartment. Semegran, a recent grant recipient of the Dallas Museum of Art's Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund, hosts shows for fellow artists who face barriers to entry in traditional gallery settings.
"I know I could throw a rock and hit an artist in my friend group and a lot of people that I think deserve to be shown, so I just wanted to take it into my own hands," Semegran said.
"Think about all the conversations that aren't being had because we aren't putting these artists on a wall," Hulsey said. "I'm glad Ryan has taken the reins and is doing it, because I know it's hard."
Hulsey's images suggest that the unfamiliar isn't always some place new, sometimes it's a place we've grown up with that continues to spark curiosity.
"I think it's interesting to come back to something that whenever you're a kid, it's so larger than life and fantastical and honestly [to me] ...it still feels that way."
Christian Vasquez is a Senior Video Producer at KERA.
KERA Arts Docs is an ongoing short documentary series profiling artists and cultural organizations across North Texas.
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