Greetings & Happy 2023!
The Institute is an opportunity for Mural Arts Philadelphia to share knowledge and learn. Guided by insights and feedback from our cohort members, we continue to grow, adapt and reflect on lessons learned over the past year. We’ve heard from many that the past few years have only amplified the importance of collaboration, community, and building strong, supportive relationships at the local level. All goals we wholeheartedly support!
Our intent is to uplift and support local coalitions' unique history and expertise that put people, especially marginalized people, at the center of solutions. With our knowledge as the nation's largest public arts organization dedicated to change, we aim to be allies rather than outsiders parachuting in with “answers.” We believe that true cultural vibrancy means honoring and reflecting the identities and experiences of those closest to work.
Over this next year, we’re dedicated to continuing to be a resource and conduit for change- whether that’s connecting activists, artists, and community members with a network of others tackling similar issues or providing technical support that advances the missions and impact of grassroots organizations. We look forward to a year of opportunities to advance socially-engaged public art practices across the country and the globe.
With gratitude for the work you do to care for yourselves and your communities,
Ellissa Collier
Senior Program Manager,
pronouns: she/her
(From left to right: Sarah Branch, Ellissa Collier, and Joseph Iacona)
We are kicking this year off with new team members at the Institute! Meet Ellissa, Joseph, and Sarah:
Sarah Branch (she/her), Administrator, is an arts administrator, educator, facilitator, and interdisciplinary artist based in Philadelphia. Through arts education, public programming, and community-based arts projects and performances, Sarah collaborates with artists, change makers, community leaders, and organizations locally and nationwide. She received her B.A. from Swarthmore College and is currently a graduate student at Drexel University, earning her M.S. in Arts Administration. In her free time, Sarah enjoys cooking, embroidering, and spending time with family and friends!
Ellissa Collier (she/her), Senior Program Manager, is a Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary artist, educator, and community advocate. She specializes in curriculum design, program management, and group facilitation. She approaches her work from a restorative framework helping organizations work more collaboratively and transparently with communities to promote trust and healing. Besides Mural Arts, Ellissa cares for a playful terrier and loves to travel, hike, meditate, and rest.
Joseph Iacona (he/him), Senior Program Manager, is an artist, educator, and muralist. He has supported creative exploration with intergenerational audiences in schools, museums, prisons, and behavioral health facilities and has exhibited projects at museums, galleries, and cultural institutions throughout the East Coast. Iacona previously managed educational programs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, facilitating learning experiences for artists & educators and developing visiting artist partnerships with over 50 local schools. Joseph has written for Art21 Magazine and serves on the Content Advisory Committee for the Alliance of American Museums. Outside work, he enjoys nature walks with his spouse Sarah and their one-year-old, making music, painting, and riding motorcycles.
Art & Environmental Justice 2nd Cohort Final Convening
The Mural Arts Institute worked with three cities utilizing socially engaged, participatory public art to imagine sustainable solutions and fuel awareness around local environmental injustice issues. In September 2022, MAI’s Art and Environment Capacity Building Initiative was able to convene community members, artists, activists, organizations, and scholars for a culminating event in Philadelphia. The issues addressed ranged from neighborhood beautification efforts to redlining, from air toxins to pesticide exposure.
PUBLIC ART & CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
PACE Initiative Projects
Through the Public Art and Civic Engagement (PACE) initiative, our learning partners (APANO) Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (Portland, OR), (LVA) Louisville Visual Arts (Louisville, KY), and (SSCAC) Southside Community Arts Center (Chicago, IL) concluded the first series of Artist Catalyst projects.
Paola De La Cruz & Lillyanne Pham worked with communities from Orchards of 82nd, a 48-unit housing project and multicultural community space utilized by immigrant and refugee populations that address gentrification and displacement in Southeast Portland’s Jade District. They created a mural in the playground called “Drink the Water, Remember the Source,” a Vietnamese proverb uống nước nhớ nguồn, that pays homage to the Orchards of 82nd (O82) matriarch, and recognizes the importance of the space as both a place of play between youth and as a forum for conversation and community between youth caregivers.
Jaylin Stewart worked with participants at the California Community Center, a community resource center in Louisville. Through a series of art-making workshops, Jaylin created a space for healing, relationship building, and having fun. To promote representation and honor the stories of Black and Brown community members, a collaborative mural was painted and installed on the side of the center that featured images of workshop participants.
Cecil McDonald created a video collage representing past and present residents of Bronzeville, a historically Black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Projected onto the SSCAC’s windows, ‘Metropolis: A City in Black’ was created by combining images from SSCAC’s extensive archive, abstract city imagery, and portraits he collected throughout six months of events, dialogues, and encounters on the streets around Bronzeville,
The second Artist Catalyst projects are underway! Three new artists have been selected to complete projects in their communities including Midori Hirose @ APANO in Portland Oregon, Michael Coppage @ Louisville Visual Arts in Louisville Kentucky, and Andrea Yarbrough @ Southside Community Arts Center in Chicago, Illinois.
Stay tuned for more exciting news and developments on all the PACE initiative projects and the culminating PACE Symposium, and big congratulations to the artists and the learning partners instrumental to the success of the first Artist Catalyst projects!
COMING UP IN MARCH @ SXSW
Nadia Malik, our Porch Light Program Director, along with Jane Golden and SEPTA’s CEO Leslie Richards, will present Mural Arts Philadelphia’s innovative Color Me Back program, which offers people experiencing economic and/or housing insecurity an opportunity to make art, earn same-day pay and access social services.
For more info visit the SXSW website
Fédération de l’Art Urbain, France
This Fall, Netanel Portier began to develop a relationship with the Federation de l’Art Urbain in France, where she led a virtual presentation and conversation in French for their members of urban artists and administrators. We hope to develop an artists exchange with them in the near future.
Congratulations!
In October, Sarah Kolker and Art Ed alums presented at the Adding Voices Conference at Moore College. Sarah and her co-presenters won the Observe & Reflect: Stay Engaged Award. This award honors a program or team who has demonstrated a willingness to notice patterns of beliefs, behaviors, and actions within art education that benefit some while devaluing others. A program/team who holds themselves and others accountable for reflecting on practices that could allow greater access to opportunities and resources.
Pigment Workroom, Italy
Friendships across the seas! Announcement with Italian Partners
What started as a conversation in 2021 has become an opportunity for cross-cultural learning and collaboration. Pigment Workroom, a multidisciplinary arts studio based in Southern Italy, joins Mural Arts Philadelphia in a shared commitment to fostering innovative creators while strengthening community resilience in support of climate justice.
We are honored and excited to work alongside our Italian peers! Through visits across continents, this partnership takes place over 12 months with multiple opportunities for knowledge sharing and engagement throughout and includes partners such as X-Farm (an intergenerational space reclaimed from organized crime operations) working with artist and environmental engineer, Andrecco.
Follow our adventures and stay tuned for updates @Regione Puglia, @X-Farm, and @Muralarts.
Artworks, Trenton, NJ
The Institute has been working with the Artworks in Trenton, New Jersey team to support their development of numerous mural projects, an artist-in-residency program, and more. We visited multiple sites and shared our polytab mural practice with them when they came to Philadelphia in the summer.
(Summer 2022, Trenton Artworks visits Philadelphia for a mural tour with the MAI team led by Cathy Harris)
Join us on the first Thursday of each month for informal Q&A sessions on Zoom with Mural Arts Philadelphia staff! In these lunch sessions, we share resources and answer quick questions on all things murals.
Upcoming sessions:
March 2, 2023, from 12 p.m. - 1 p.m.
April 6, 2023, from 12 p.m. - 1 p.m.
May 4, 2023, from 12 p.m. - 1 p.m.
(In person the week of July 17th with virtual introductions and sessions following)
Join Philadelphia’s leading muralists and community arts leaders for a hybrid learning experience unlike any other!
This training is ideal for artists and cultural workers looking to expand their socially engaged artistic practice to mural-making scale or for muralists looking to root their practice in a community-centered approach.
Led by a team of professional artists and administrators providing Mural Arts Philadelphia’s 35+ years of experience in project planning, community engagement strategy, and mural-making techniques, this cohort-centered experience provides 4 full days of in-person learning in Philadelphia in addition to a series of virtual instruction.
If interested in this opportunity, please contact institute@muralarts.org, as space will be limited.
The Mural Arts Institute is dedicated to advancing research on and development of socially-engaged public art practices. We bring the Mural Arts model to other change-oriented cities across the country to help build their capacity to sustain community-driven public art projects. We work with artists, arts organizations, cultural institutions, municipal governments and more to ignite change with public art.
The Mural Arts Institute is supported by the JPB Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.