Growing up, Maddy Hirsch wanted two things: to make useful things with her hands and to own her own business. Guided by those goals, she enrolled in Temple University’s entrepreneurial studies program, only to feel disillusioned with what she saw as its narrow focus on traditional and tech startups. She transferred to the Tyler School
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Murals are so prevalent in Philadelphia that you can almost take them for granted. Started over 35 years ago, Mural Arts Philadelphia (previously the Mural Arts Program) is the largest public arts program in the country, with more than 2,500 murals completed. Jane Golden, the founding executive director, has been the one constant as the
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Grid was invited to attend and moderate a panel at the Mural Arts Institute Art and Environmental Justice Symposium on Sept. 14th. This event was part of a week long series exploring how art and environmental justice intersect throughout the US with Mural Arts Institute Partners. The below image is a reflection on the day’s
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If you’re a fan of the Feminist Flea Market & Craft Fair, you no longer have to wait for the few times a year when the flea happens. Starting September 9th, you can go to Baby Tooth at the BOK Building in South Philly six days a week to find the same collection of jewelry,
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The Mural Arts Institute is hosting a two-week series of events from September 12 through 22, looking at the transformative work happening at the intersection of community-based cultural practice and environmental justice. The 2022 Arts & Environmental Justice Symposium invites local, regional and national artists, activists, cultural workers, environmental justice advocates, organizers, scientists, scholars and
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The Da Vinci Art Alliance is in financial distress and needs help staying afloat, according to co-directors Samantha Connors and Bryant Girsch. “As many organizations post-COVID-19 lockdown, we’re struggling financially,” they announced via press release. The Alliance dates back to 1931, when 16 Italian immigrant artists and collectors founded the organization at a time when
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Traffic streams over the Adams Avenue Bridge in the video on the Tacony Creek Suite website. To the motorists, the creek and the park around it are simply something to cross, but the camera, as well as the music, focus on Tacony Creek Park, the corridor of flowing water and forest in the middle. “Each
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The Painted Bride Art Center has announced Resistance Garden: Cultivating Abundance, a programming series including five community dinners, five artist residencies, and four zine releases. “When you’re making a radical effort like beautifying and reclaiming land, the best way to engage people is art. Our artist residencies are how we bring an element of creativity
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How many empty plastic water bottles did you see on the ground today? How about chip bags or blunt wrappers? Plastic litter is so abundant and widespread that it fades into the background, but a new initiative of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is employing artwork in an effort to highlight the
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The Schuylkill river, swollen with runoff from Hurricane Ida, was rising fast. Karen Young, the executive director of the Fairmount Water Works, knew it was only a matter of time until the river’s chocolate-brown water flooded the Interpretive Center, the water-focused museum next to the Fairmount Dam. “I was in the center the day the
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In colonial Jamaica a group of enslaved women were bathing in the nude, washing clothes and likely gossiping on a riverbank when some traveling Englishmen spied them, according to Kevin Dawson, associate professor of history at the University of California, Merced, in his book “Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora.” Thrilled with
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