Wife-husband collaborators and UPenn School of Design faculty Deirdre Murphy
and Scott White recently completed a 5 by 25 foot sculpture that was installed last month in the burgeoning Silicon Valley city of Dublin, CA.
The project, which took nearly two years to complete, combines Murphy’s fine arts expertise and climate science research with White’s unique knowledge of digital modeling and 1930’s car design. Murphy and White will be discussing the groundbreaking project at UArts’ Design Philadelphia event this October, detailing their unusual design and build process—an integration of traditional and digital fabrication techniques.
Warbler Migration was inspired by a shy species that resides in the Dublin ecosystem, and one which Murphy developed a particular fondness for in the course of her research. She has been researching the effects of global warming on bird migration for several years, using the visual data that scientists share with her to conceptualize and execute her paintings. The couple sees the opportunity to create environmentally-aware public art as an especially fulfilling one because of the potential to touch so many lives.
“Climate change has created new flight patterns; birds are staying in their summer homes longer, depleting the food supply they rely on to fuel their autumn journey,” says Murphy. “As educators, it’s important for us to share this knowledge. Embedding information about climate change in our art is a softer way to reach a broader audience.”
It was White’s task to take Murphy’s mesmerizing depictions of flocking birds and activate them into 3D space, which he did by digitally designing, then hand cutting and assembling more than 500 aluminum plates into a handcrafted hyperbolic curve.
Murphy’s and White’s presentation will take place Monday, October 9 at 6.30 at 211 South Broad Street, Terra Hall, room 511/513. Process art from Warbler Migration will be on display, along with the Industrial Design NOW exhibition prior to the presentation, from 5:00-6:30. The event is free and open to the public.
Deirdre Murphy is an adjunct professor of fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, at institutions including the Philadelphia International Airport, New Bedford Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. She is the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Pennsylvania Council for the Arts Fellowship and a Leeway Foundation award, and is represented by the Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia; her work can be viewed at www.deirdremurphyart.com.
Scott White is a senior lecturer in animation at the University of Pennsylvania. His sculpture, animation, and designs have been shown nationally and internationally at venues including Design Philadelphia, Philly Works, Woodmere Art Museum, Gross McCleaf Gallery, and the Abington Art Center. Scott has been a visiting artist at institutions such as Philadelphia University, Moore College, and Wilmington University, Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum and is the owner and operator of Preservation Coachworks LLC.
Thank you to Christina Cook, Media Relations, Deirdre Murphy Art for the content of this post.
Daniel Tucker, Guest Curator, Graduate Program Director in Social and Studio Practices at Moore College of Art and Design
March 27 – May 27, 2017 Public Program and Reception: Thursday, March 30, 2017, 6:00 – 8:30pm
Our public program begins at 6:00 pm followed by the reception Rowan University Art Gallery, 301 High Street West, First Floor, Glassboro, NJ 08028
Admission to the gallery and reception is free and open to the public.
The public program begins at 6:00 pm, led by guest curator Daniel Tucker in dialogue on art, geography, and agricultural planning with Professor Megan Bucknum Ferrigno from Rowan University’s School of Geography and Environment, and with exhibiting artists.
Artists explore the US food supply chain and its complex patterns of distribution in between the point of origin (the farm) and its point of consumption (the plate). The exhibition aims to highlight the work of contemporary artists grappling with the complexity of this movement through multi-media, research-based, and participatory practices that focus a lens on the social and industrial impacts of migrant workers, food justice movements, immigration, multiculturalism, and economic disparities. This project builds upon Tucker’s event series, Moving Units: Where Food & Economy Converge. A companion booklet, produced by Rowan University Art Gallery, serves to provide a general overview of US food supply chains. It includes descriptions of the artist contributions to the exhibition that relate to each step on the chain. Throughout this booklet you read about an approach to geographic education that values connecting with the world outside the classroom. The booklet was researched and written by Megan Bucknum Ferrigno, part-time faculty member of Rowan University’s Department of Geography, Planning and Sustainability. Additional contributions made by Dr. Chuck McGlynn, Dr. Jennifer Kitson and Makenzie Franco.
About the Artists and Projects
With Corner Store, Amber Art & Design– a team of Philadelphia-based artists that work on public art within marginalized communities that have little or no access to art – explores the contemporary sociological and psychological intersection between pan-ethnic Black and Asian communities in Philadelphia and how relationships are shaped based on which side of the counter we stand. (image top)
Illinois-based artists Ryan Griffis and Sarah Ross are represented by Between the Bottomlands and the World, a video (combining photographs, narrative writing, and moving images) exploring the rural Midwestern town of Beardstown, IL, a place of global exchange and international mobility, inscribed by post-NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) realities.
Brian Holmes, an art and cultural critic with a Ph.D. in Romance Languages has a long-standing interest in neoliberal globalization and a taste for on-the-ground intervention. His online atlas, Living Rivers, is devoted to the Mississippi and Great Lakes watersheds and shows these fluid ecosystems as they are inhabited by a multitude of creatures and radically altered by human enterprise.
Otabenga Jones & Associates, a Houston-based educational art organization, documents a collaborative art project and public health program addressing the ongoing crisis of obesity and its related risks with “The People’s Plate.” Inspired by the Black Panther Free Breakfast for School Children Program, this art project includes a public mural in Houston and programs to kick off a year-long commitment to health education.
Cynthia Main, a multidisciplinary artist from Missouri focuses on relating to the land as part of an integral view of a more sustainable society. She shares her hand-made buckets and barrels created using traditional techniques to readdress storage as one of the current dilemmas of localizing production.
Chicago’s Claire Pentecost uses photography to show how industrial agriculture is only partly about supplying food and how it is structured to meet the problem of expense and excess capital accumulation when considering the cost of complex machinery, brand name chemical herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers, and patented seeds.
Philly Stake is a locally-sourced, recurring dinner that raises funds for creative and relevant community engaged projects that contributes to the well-being of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods through community arts, urban agriculture, social services, and activist work.
Stephanie Rothenberg’s Reversal of Fortune: The Garden of Virtual Kinship is a garden in the form of a global map that explores the question of what it means to be charitable through the click of a button and examines the cultural phenomena of online crowd-funded charity and how the flow of money impacts the project, positively and negatively.
Candice Smith runs Freedom Arts, an after school collaborative art program at Camden’s Freedom Prep Middle School, which is creating an installation responding to the idea that Camden is a “food desert” and examining the movement of food at their school and in their community.
Philadelphia-based Kristen Neville Taylor’s installation – a globe depicting routes of oranges and actual oranges outfitted with a QR code that links to music, articles, folk tales, and art – was inspired by a lyric from Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne” (“and she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China”) which she associated with the market place and the movement of food but also romance and exotic foreign cultures.
Admission to the gallery and reception is free and open to the public.
Free parking is now available in the parking garage on Mick Drive directly across from the gallery. For visitor information go to our website: www.rowan.edu/artgallery.
Thank you to Mary Salvante, Rowan University Art Gallery for the content of this post.
HORSHAM, Pa. — She may be a successful artist now, having built a multi-million- dollar business around her expressive watercolor painting and inspirational messages. But like many who dream of a creatively fulfilling career, Kathy Davis was once deterred by the myth of the “starving artist.”
“The whole starving artist thing is something we’ve all heard. It kind of puts the fear in people,” says Davis, CEO and chief visionary officer of Kathy Davis Studios, one of the top social expression and lifestyle brands in the country.
The former art teacher wants to help dispel that fear in others considering or struggling with a career in the arts. On Oct. 29, she’ll be part of the panel discussion “How Not to be a Starving Artist,” held at the Horsham Township Library.
The special event, sponsored by the Scatter Joy Center for the Arts, which Davis founded in 2015, will explore the pros and cons of starting your own business versus freelancing or working in-house, as well as offer insights and suggestions for licensing your work and building a brand.
Kathy Davis
Davis has invited a diverse gathering of colleagues to join her: fine artist and illustrator Robert Papp; Amy Voloshin, founder and creative director of textile design studio Printfresh; Sarah Van Aken, president of Kathy Davis Studios and founder of fashion brand SA VA; and author and illustrator Lisa Papp.
“We’ve covered a wide variety of industries and combined different perspectives so that anybody could get something out of this, whether they want to be a musician, a writer, a photographer…
“There are so many new fields in the arts, with technology-based companies and social media and computerized design in addition to some of the more traditional mediums. People should really explore and expose themselves to as wide a variety as possible out there before they try to zero in and make a decision.”
Davis herself was 35 before she even considered striking out on her own as an artist. Although she always loved art, she lacked the confidence to pursue it and spent her early adult years teaching sixth grade and then high school art in her native Horsham after she received her master’s degree in art education.
“It was a common conception at the time that being an artist was not a safe career,” she says.
Sarah Van Aken
Following a divorce, Davis began designing the greeting cards that would launch her career as an artist from a drawing table in the corner of her bedroom, while her children napped. Those cards, with their expressive florals, whimsical designs and heartfelt messaging, have since touched millions.
“Faith that the next job will come, that I’ll feel creative when I have to create the next sketch. Faith that I’ll find some part of me to share with the world. Faith that this little job will lead to a big job,” she says. “An artist’s life is a circle of faith, trust, action. You can makea very nice living from art if you are dedicated and professional.”
Even in moments of failure, there are lessons to be learned. Van Aken, a Reading native and Philadelphia resident, became one of the city’s hottest young entrepreneurs when she launched her made-in- Philadelphia fashion brand SA VA in 2009. Its clothing was all produced with varying levels of sustainability, whether it was organic, locally made, fair trade or recycled. Then, in 2013, after becoming a celebrated model for contemporary sustainable enterprise, she shuttered her business amid struggles to raise capital for its wholesale division and unpalatable investor demands.
Today, she considers her uncommonly transparent exit among her greatest accomplishments. “It could have been a disastrous — financially, professionally, personally — situation but each step of the way, I honored the people and process and the ending was even better than the beginning,” she says. “When I started my fashion business, I wanted to be great. I used to identify my greatness by achieving the ultimate in success — positive reviews in the best fashion magazines, a high valuation for my business… As I grew with my business, I saw that greatness is reached by always acting with integrity. Failure helps you find your greatness.”
Such insights are what Davis hopes aspiring artists especially will find valuable at this month’s event.
“You have to believe in yourself and your talent. But you also have to be flexible and adapt to what the market needs,” she says. “I was a starving artist until I found the right way to go about it.”
Digital Explorations of the Natural World:
Main Line Art Center Presents Panorama 2016 Feature Exhibition, Enlightened Earth
Through November 5, 2016 Mark Dorf | Julianna Foster | Nick Pedersen
Curated by: Amie Potsic, Executive Director of Main Line Art Center
Panorama Festival & Live Digital Art Presentation with Leo Hylan,
Digital Artist in Residence Saturday, October 22, 5-9 pm | Free
Enlightened Earth, on view through November 5 at Main Line Art Center in Haverford, explores nature and our complex relationship to its past, present, and feature, through works that engage the photographic medium and digital media by Mark Dorf (New York), Julianna Foster (Philadelphia), and Nick Pedersen (Burlington, NJ). Curated by the Art Center’s Executive Director and Chief Curator Amie Potsic, Enlightened Earth is the feature exhibition of Panorama: Image-Based Art in the 21st Century, the Art Center’s 2 month celebration of the photographic image and digital media in contemporary art, featuring over 50 events presented by the Center and its 40+ Partners.
In Enlightened Earth, Pedersen, Foster, and Dorf lead us down a path of multi-layered, multi-media discovery through storytelling, scientific research, and fantastical landscapes. Deeply rooted in environmentalism, Nick Pedersen’s layering of photography and digital media shows concern for the future by depicting the ways in which mankind’s creations have an impact on the planet. Through photography, video, artist books, and prints, Julianna Foster’s work represents distinct narratives, which are informed by her interest in cinema and storytelling and their relationships to photography. Employing a mix of photography and digital media, Mark Dorf’s work explores the post-analogue experience of society’s interactions with the digital world and its relationship to our natural origins.
Complementing the exhibition, Julianna Foster and Nick Pedersen will both present workshops on their techniques during Main Line Art Center’s Fall Session. Bookmaking: Self-Publishing 101 with Julianna Foster is on Sunday, Sept. 25 from 1-4 pm, and is $90 for Art Center Members, and $98 for non-members. Nick Pedersen will offer a 2 week workshop, Imaginary Landscapes: Digital Photomontage, on Thursday, Oct. 27 and Nov. 3 from6:30-9:30 pm for $84 for Art Center Members, and $96 for non-members. Advanced registration is required for both via www.mainlineart.org or610.525.0272.
Mark Dorf lives and works in New York and earned his BFA at Savannah Collage of Art and Design (SCAD) in 2011, graduating Magna Cum Laude. He has exhibited internationally at Division Gallery in Toronto, Postmasters Gallery in New York, Outlet Gallery in Brooklyn, The Lima Museum of Contemporary Art, Mobile World Centre in Barcelona, Harbor Gallery in New York, SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, and Phoenix Gallery in New York. He has been awarded fellowships to artist residencies in Iceland, Czechoslovakia, Peru, New York, and Colorado and received the Mayer Foundation Grant in 2015. His work has been published in Surface Magazine, Granta Magazine, and FOAM Magazine and has published two monographs on his work: Emergence (2015) and Translations (2016). His work is featured in collections at the Deutsche Bank, the Fleet Library at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory. Dorf was the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward Winner in 2015 and has forthcoming exhibitions at the Untitled Art Fair in Miami and the Prague Botanical Gardens in Czechoslovakia.
Once You Were an Island 3 Julianna Foster 2015
Based in Philadelphia, Julianna Foster is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Photography at the University of the Arts and has been a guest lecturer at Rowan University and Temple University. She received a BFA in Design from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2001 and an MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from the University of the Arts in 2006. Foster was an artist member of Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia from 2006 to 2013, where she has had four solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in New Orleans, London, and New York. Solo exhibitions in Philadelphia include the Philadelphia Art Alliance, Painted Bride Art Center, Fleisher Art Memorial – Wind Challenge 2013, and Gravy Studio and Gallery. Select group exhibitions include shows at the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Front Gallery in New Orleans, Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, and Power Plant Gallery in Durham. Additionally, her work has been published in Conveyor Magazine, Proof Magazine, Cleaver Magazine, and Good Game Magazine. Foster was a 2014 artist in residence at the Philadelphia Photo Art Center and has participated in international group exhibitions in England, Romania, Spain, Korea, and Bulgaria.
Nick Pedersen is a photographer and digital artist based in the Philadelphia area who holds a BFA in Photography and an MFA in Digital Arts from Pratt Institute in New York. He has exhibited in galleries across the country and internationally, including the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, Paradigm Gallery in Philadelphia, the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts, Auguste Clown Gallery in Australia, the San Francisco Center for the Book, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, The Banff Center in Canada, and Art Basel Miami. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as After Capture, Beautiful Decay, Juxtapoz, Hi-Fructose, and Empty Kingdom. And, he has published two artist books featuring his long-term personal projects Sumeru and Ultima. Pedersen received the Stellar Art Award from Digital Arts California in 2013 and was a Photography Finalist in 2011 for the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. He has recently completed artist residencies at the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada and the Gullkistan Residency in Iceland. Pedersen was featured on WHYY’s Articulate in 2016, which includes an interview and footage of his artistic process taking photographs on location in the city of Philadelphia.
Amie Potsic began her tenure as Executive Director and Chief Curator of Main Line Art Center in July of 2012. Prior to that, she served as Director of Gallery 339 and Director of the Career Development Program at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists (CFEVA) in Philadelphia where she curated exhibitions and planned professional development programming for emerging and professional artists. Potsic has curated over 80 exhibitions at venues including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and Moore College of Art & Design. Potsic is also an established photographer and installation artist who has exhibited her work internationally in Greece, Italy, Colombia, and the United Kingdom as well as in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York. In addition, she is currently Chair of the Art In City Hall Artistic Advisory Board to the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Arts, Culture & the Creative Economy.
Panorama: Image-Based Art in the 21st Century, is Main Line Art Center’s celebration of the photographic image and digital media and their expansive roles in contemporary mediums like digital photography, printmaking, video, film, animation, and gaming design. Anchored by Enlightened Earth and a dynamic and interactive evening festival and digital art presentation at Main Line Art Center on Saturday, October 22 from 5 to 9 pm, Panorama features over 50 events over the course of 2 months presented by 40+ Partners and the Art Center, including physical and virtual exhibitions, lectures, portfolio reviews, and educational programs held at the Art Center led by accomplished artists who utilize digital technology to deliver the unexpected. Panorama is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and PA Council on the Arts, as well as Business Partners Wilkie Lexus, Main Line Today, Philadelphia Media Network, PECO, Barefoot Wine & Bubbly, Main Line Media News, Merion Art & Repro, and Stage Trip Productions (as of 8/25/2016). Panorama is DesignPhiladelphia feature event. For a complete list ofPanorama programs, download the digital guide: www.mainlineart.org/panorama2016.
Main Line Art Center is the community’s home to discover, create, and experience visual art. The mission of Main Line Art Center is to inspire and engage people of all ages, abilities, and economic means in visual art through education, exhibitions, and experiences. Committed to increasing the visibility and accessibility of art, the Art Center presents innovative exhibitions and events in the community, including Panorama: Image-Based Art in the 21st Century, a Greater Philadelphia-wide celebration of the photographic image and digital media. Main Line Art Center’s educational offerings for all ages, abilities, and economic means span from traditional to contemporary, and are all held to the highest level of excellence. In 2015, Main Line Art Center received the Commitment to Cultural Access Award from Art-Reach for the Center’s Accessible Art Programs for children and adults with disabilities, now in their 52nd year. Additionally, the Art Center grants over $12,000 in need-based scholarships annually. Last year, Main Line Art Center engaged 21,000 people through classes, exhibitions, and Summer Art Camp, and touched the lives of over 78,000 through Exhibitions in the Community and festivals across the Philadelphia area.
Main Line Art Center is located at 746 Panmure Road in Haverford, PA, just off of Lancaster Avenue. The Art Center is easily accessible from public transportation and offers abundant free parking. For more information about Panorama, please visit www.mainlineart.org/panorama2016 or call 610.525.0272.
Francis Kéré is an internationally renowned, Berlin based architect who integrates traditional knowledge and craft skills into innovative and sustainable buildings worldwide. As the first son of the head of Gando, his home village in Burkina Faso, he was the only child allowed to attend school in a large city; he later studied architecture in Europe. While still a student, he began to reinvest his knowledge back into his community, building schools that would change its future trajectory.
In Gando, Kéré combined traditional Burkinabé building techniques with modern engineering methods, maximizing local materials and community participation to reduce costs and ecological impact—a practice common to many of the projects highlighted in this exhibition. His work in Gando has become a catalyst for further development: the men and women he trained in construction techniques can now use their skills to earn incomes for their families. Students in his schools have gone on to pursue higher education and aspire to circumstances that were considered impossible before.Primary school in Gando, Burkina Faso, completed 2001, Designed by Francis Kéré, Burkinabe, active Berlin, Photograph by Erik-Jan Ouwerkerk
Harnessing the success of the Gando initiative, Kéré founded his Berlin office in 2005 and has since garnered acclaim for his work elsewhere in Western Africa and, more recently, in Europe and North America. He is the recipient of the 2014 Schelling Architecture Foundation Award, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, and the BSI Swiss Architectural Award, among others.
This school consists of nine modules that house a series of classrooms and administrative offices. The laterite stone walls, undulating off-white ceiling, and unique wind-towers exponentially reduce the interior temperature.
Secondary School, 2007 / Dano
Consisting of three classrooms, a computer room, and office space, this school is built mostly of widely available laterite stone and features a permeable ceiling, a corrugated sheet roof, and shaded windows that ensure natural ventilation. The laterite refining process and the ventilation system illustrate Kéré’s innovative techniques utilizing local handicraft.
To ensure a natural and sustainable cooling system in an extremely hot region, the roof over the classrooms is elevated from the interior construction; underneath, a perforated clay ceiling allows for maximum ventilation.
Canopy Shelter and Shade
The tree is a primal form of shelter. Four fundamental elements of architecture can be extracted from the various parts of the tree: canopy, structure, gathering place, and shadow. The canopy, as a general concept of various roof and ceiling enclosures, is an architectural cornerstone in Kéré’s work. Constructions in hot, arid places like Burkina Faso depend on innovative shade-making devices that allow ventilation and cooling without the need for electricity, as well as overhangs that provide protection from torrential rains. This video’s skyward perspective presents the importance of canopies in Burkina Faso, from village trees to traditional ceilings made of clay and thatch, to Kéré’s roof constructions at different stages of completion.
Reflecting the accessibility of Kéré’s building process, this video shows one of his most recent projects: the Lycée Schorge school in Koudougou, Burkina Faso. Unlike most modern construction sites in the West, which are strictly off-limits to the public, the Schorge site is left open for the surrounding villagers to observe. This process demystifies the act of building, allowing the public to slowly accept and sometimes even contribute to the new construction. Every stage of the project, including mounting the ceiling trusses and facade elements, fabricating the classroom furniture, and painting the interiors and window shutters, is performed without the use of heavy machinery.
The chairs in this space were made by a local fabricator in Philadelphia using the same design that Kéré created for schools in Burkina Faso. The Francis Kéré Foundation and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are pleased to offer these fifteen chairs for sale at the close of the exhibition to support Kéré’s further work in Gando. If you would like to reserve one or more chairs, please visit the Museum Store in this building for further details.
Diébédo Francis Kéré: How to build with clay… and community
Sharing Knowledge
Whether in a classroom with chalkboards and desks, or under a great baobab tree with logs and stones, the survival and prosperity of each new generation relies heavily on the transmission of knowledge. Gathering is not only a function of social occasions, it is also how ideas are discussed and spread. Shadow symbolizes this place of coming together. Visitors are invited to sit within this gathering space.
Wood
While natural hardwood forests are rare in Burkina Faso, the fast-growing eucalyptus tree provides a useful source of timber. This species is considered a nuisance in the region because it provides little shade and leaches moisture from the soil, exacerbating the problems of desertification. Despite its limited structural strength, it can still be made into screens, interior finishes, furniture, and even secondary facade systems that shade and protect buildings from wind and rain. Through the process of testing and prototyping, Kéré’s firm is also exploring new solutions for reinforcing the material for structural applications.
Clay
Burkinabés have long built with clay, extracting it from the earth, processing it by hand, and using it in a variety of architectural and craft elements, from walls to hand-built pottery. For the Gando School Library, Kéré pioneered a new use for local clay, casting sections of large pots into the ceiling to provide natural ventilation and lighting. Made by local women, the pots were transported to the building site on foot, involving the community’s expertise and participation. More recently, Kéré engineered an innovative way to cast the clay into reusable molds, creating wall systems that can be replicated for use in modular buildings.
Bricks
Bricks play a crucial role in Kéré’s architectural practice. Whether cast from clay or cut from locally extracted laterite stone, the simple form of the brick can be used to create sophisticated architectural forms and building systems. With or without mortar, bricks can be used in walls, ceilings, and floors. Different systems of stacking and bonding can produce a permeable boundary, allowing air and light to pass through. Thick brick walls also create a thermal mass, which, together with adequate ventilation and shading, helps to maintain a comfortably cool interior space.
School Furniture
To offset the costs of transporting building materials to remote sites with extremely limited means, Kéré and his team came up with ingenious ways to use every scrap of material left over from construction. Using steel rebar and plywood, the team built customized chairs and desks for school students and staff. Every bend and weld was carefully calculated to streamline production time and costs. The furniture was produced on-site with simple hand tools and jigs. A particularly striking detail is the rubber “shoe” made by hand from recycled automobile tires.
Architecture of Community
Despite the many differences between the city of Philadelphia and the village of Gando in Burkina Faso, where Francis Kéré was born, the installation in this atrium emphasizes the human-scale domestic architecture of both places and the sense of community such a design produces. In the plan of this space, Kéré overlaid the geometric grid of William Penn’s Philadelphia — represented by the regular placement of the frames that support the hanging parachute cord enclosures — with the irregular disposition of the enclosures themselves, mimicking the organic development of a Burkinabé village. The installation also features sounds collected from both Burkina Faso and Philadelphia, reinforcing the concept of community and shared space. The hanging parachute cord material may appear first as an obstacle, but on entering and interacting with the installation, the visitor will perceive that the material is a unifying, enclosing element that creates common spaces that must be negotiated and shared.
It Takes a Village
Conceived by Kéré Architecture and designed in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Curatorial, Exhibition Design, and Editorial and Graphic Design teams, this exhibition has fostered an exchange of ideas, traditions, and experiences between Africa, Europe, and the United States. Thanks to the eager participation of many members of the Museum staff and volunteers, the Young Friends Executive Board and event committee, students from the University of Pennsylvania Undergraduate Program in Architecture, and the general public to help fabricate components, this installation truly represents the coming together of a community. In addition, the Philadelphia Museum of Art would like to acknowledge Richard Wesley, for facilitating the UPenn collaboration; Larry Spitz, Carol Klein, and Sasha Barrett, who generously offered their services in creating the red clay pots to suggest the Gando Library ceiling; and David Cann and James Bassett-Cann, for their help in the realization of the atrium installation.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art isPhiladelphia’s art museum. We are a landmark building. A world-renowned collection. A place that welcomes everyone. We bring the arts to life, inspiring visitors—through scholarly study and creative play—to discover the spirit of imagination that lies in everyone. We connect people with the arts in rich and varied ways, making the experience of the Museum surprising, lively, and always memorable. We are committed to inviting visitors to see the world—and themselves—anew through the beauty and expressive power of the arts.
,” says no matter her level of achievement, her artistic life remains fueled by faith.
