Image announcing my residency on social media. I also made postcards and placed them throughout the library.
My online user profile at the Free Library.
Art Department Librarian, Alina Josan, shows me artist folders at the Art Department. The folders are an archive of artist ephemera; newspaper clippings, catalogs, etc. I end up starting my own Artist Folder during my residency.
guerrilla performance at the Free Library of Philadelphia
I began going to an Arabic/English Cultural exchange to learn Arabic. The food pictured is a Middle Eastern dessert a member of the group made and brought in for everyone. My notecards from the group with phonetic pronunciations of Arabic, mar-ha-bah, means Welcome.
A performance art piece performed at Poetry Open Mic at the Free Library in Philadelphia on March 2nd, 2020. This is a performance in response to Michel Houellebecq's "Submission".
As part of my self-initiated performance art residency at the Free Library, I re-enacted performance movements from Yvonne Rainer. Rainer often used projected title cards with her live performances and juxtaposed within her films. The title cards included in this performance are from "This is the story of a woman who" / "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: Hybrid". Excepts from "Yvonne Rainer: radical juxtapositions 1961-2002" by Sid Sachs.
One Minute Sculpture with your Free Library Card
To go from guerrilla performance artist to being featured on the Free Library’s Instagram and blog was assimilation with the institution I did not expect. It begs me to question if a cultural institution less obliged to the general public would do the same.
guerrilla performance at the Free Library of Philadelphia Central Branch
guerrilla performance at the Free Library of Philadelphia Central Branch
During my residency and for the continuation, COVID-19 shut down all of the Free Library of Philadelphia Branches for an undetermined amount of time. With the aid of librarian, Alina Josan, I was able to put together a virtual program that sought to heighten the library’s focus on community outreach through a social practice framework. My performance research turned from conceptualism and institutional critique to social practice as a means to function during a pandemic.
At our first virtual meeting, I wrote down each person’s community concerns and organized outreach projects based on generalized groups of people that were mentioned; artists, neighbors, homeless, youth, and elderly. We were to complete a project each week. Each project was proposed by myself though I encouraged others to propose projects. Feedback was welcomed and the projects did evolve through the group’s collaborative input. I immediately had a dropoff of participants after the first meeting. We ended up completing 5 projects over a 5-week period.
Core CCE Group Participants: Alina Josan, Beth Heinly, Catherine Martin, Scott Schultheis
Project Week 1: Flood social media with information for donating to local community groups - the timing was synchronized. The community organizations were collected by recommendations from the Community Cultural Exchange. We were encouraged to donate to each organization in addition to posting about them.
Volunteer Food Distribution, help feed the homeless through Mayor’s Volunteer Corp’s, wear something red.
Volunteer Food Distribution, help feed the homeless through Mayor’s Volunteer Corp’s, wear something red.
Clean up an empty lot in your neighborhood, place a 6ft circle from twine in the lot. Alternatively, people were given the option to post a sign alerting neighbors to a local organization seeking donations.
Clean up an empty lot in your neighborhood, place a 6ft circle from twine in the lot. Alternatively, people were given the option to post a sign alerting neighbors to a local organization seeking donations.
Clean up an empty lot in your neighborhood, place a 6ft circle from twine in the lot. Alternatively, people were given the option to post a sign alerting neighbors to a local organization seeking donations.
Clean up an empty lot in your neighborhood, place a 6ft circle from twine in the lot. Alternatively, people were given the option to post a sign alerting neighbors to a local organization seeking donations.
Clean up an empty lot in your neighborhood, place a 6ft circle from twine in the lot. Alternatively, people were given the option to post a sign alerting neighbors to a local organization seeking donations.
Reach out to young artists through our local libraries, neighbors, food bank distribution locations, and art students (some members of CCE were art teachers) to ask to make art to be installed on street pavements illustrating social distance guidelines outside libraries where CCE members lived. They were invited to make art about whatever they wanted. Locations: Whitman Library, South Philadelphia Library, Logan Library, Cecil B. Moore Library (soon), Hatfield House
Pictured here: Hatfield House
Children's artwork installed outside the Hatfield House for Community Cultural Exchange at the Free Library. Featured in video students from Friends Select.
Reach out to young artists through our local libraries, neighbors, food bank distribution locations, and art students (some members of CCE were art teachers) to ask to make art to be installed on street pavements illustrating social distance guidelines outside libraries where CCE members lived. They were invited to make art about whatever they wanted. Locations: Whitman Library, South Philadelphia Library, Logan Library, Cecil B. Moore Library (soon), Hatfield House
Pictured here: South Philadelphia Library
Reach out to young artists through our local libraries, neighbors, food bank distribution locations, and art students (some members of CCE were art teachers) to ask to make art to be installed on street pavements illustrating social distance guidelines outside libraries where CCE members lived. They were invited to make art about whatever they wanted. Locations: Whitman Library, South Philadelphia Library, Logan Library, Cecil B. Moore Library (soon), Hatfield House
Pictured here: Whitman Library
Reach out to young artists through our local libraries, neighbors, food bank distribution locations, and art students (some members of CCE were art teachers) to ask to make art to be installed on street pavements illustrating social distance guidelines outside libraries where CCE members lived. They were invited to make art about whatever they wanted. Locations: Whitman Library, South Philadelphia Library, Logan Library, Cecil B. Moore Library (soon), Hatfield House
Pictured here: Logan Library
Submission from Julietta
Submission from Ella Newburger
Make a banner highlighting issues concerning the city’s budget cuts, hang banner in your neighborhood.
Make a banner highlighting issues concerning the city’s budget cuts, hang banner in your neighborhood.
Make a banner highlighting issues concerning the city’s budget cuts, hang banner in your neighborhood.
Make a banner highlighting issues concerning the city’s budget cuts, hang banner in your neighborhood. This particular text was in conjunction with various other Free Library sites across the city shared on social media through the group NoServiceNoCity.
Make a banner highlighting issues concerning the city’s budget cuts, hang banner in your neighborhood. This particular text was in conjunction with various other Free Library sites across the city shared on social media through the group NoServiceNoCity.
Texts describing tear gas from a previous Dissent Performance at the Whitney Biennial. I ended up wheatpasting these along the steps of the Art Museum after police teargassed peaceful protestors earlier that week on 676.
Texts describing tear gas from a previous Dissent Performance at the Whitney Biennial. I ended up wheatpasting these along the steps of the Art Museum after police teargassed peaceful protestors earlier that week on 676.
Andrea Fraser cosplay from Museum Highlights
A performance after Andrea Fraser's performances as a tour guide for art institutions from "Museum Highlights". The text for this performance is nearly entirely sourced word for word from the Free Library's website and Andrea Fraser's museum tours. This performance was in conjunction with my self-appointed artist residency at the Free Library of Philadelphia. It was originally broadcast on Instagram LIVE on July 15th, 2020 (Tax Day).