Introducing Our 2022 Grantees

Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture 

Manal Travels with Ibn Jubayr 
An animated film by Ely Dagher and musical score by Khyam Allami reframe historical travel narratives and conceptions of Arabic-speaking people. Inspired by The Travels of Ibn Jubayr—an 800-year-old Andalusian text—the project offers an inclusive vision of a future in which unrestricted travel is readily available to Arab and Muslim people. Film screenings and live performances of the score take place in several locations across the Philadelphia region.

The Barnes Foundation

William Edmondson (working title)  
An exhibition and newly commissioned performance recontextualize the life and work of Black American sculptor William Edmondson (1874–1951), repositioning his artistic practice within the early 20th-century art world. A new performance created by Brendan Fernandes, a Chicago-based artist working at the intersection of dance and visual art, responds to Edmondson’s work and themes of cultural displacement and identity. 

BlackStar Projects 

Venus Fly Trap 
Multidisciplinary artist Joiri Minaya collaborates with writer and curator Dessane Lopez Cassell on an outdoor performance series, short film, and publication that center Black and Indigenous narratives. Through ethnobotanical designs and movement, the collaborators, both members of the Dominican diaspora, examine Philadelphia’s colonialist horticultural practices and the cultural significance of plants for Native and Black people of the Americas, especially the Caribbean.

Esperanza Arts Center / Nueva Esperanza 

The Nichos Project 
A music theater work traverses Mexico’s long history and contemplates national identity after centuries of conquest, colonization, and cultural transformation. Nichos is developed by bilingual theater director and writer Tanaquil Márquez and composer and musician Ximena Violante with the band Ampersan. Their collaboration with local Mexican community members culminates in a performance with both historical and fantastical elements that collectively examine the challenges of preserving languages and cultural traditions.  

Mann Center for the Performing Arts 

Improvisations on “Paint Factory” by Darin Atwater and Chill Moody 
A newly adapted version of Darin Atwater’s Paint Factory—an orchestral work of classical music, hip-hop, spoken word, and dance—marks hip-hop’s 50th anniversary and reflects on how culture and racial justice movements have advanced since the piece premiered in 2007. As the Mann Center’s community-engaged artist-in-residence, Philadelphia hip-hop artist Chill Moody collaborates with Atwater on the new iteration of the 14-movement composition, performed by The Philadelphia Orchestra.

WXPN, University of Pennsylvania  

Black Opry Residency 
A creative residency program supports five emerging Black Americana musicians in refining their artistic and professional practices. In addition to a final residency performance, an accompanying podcast chronicles the project and the participants’ creative processes, expanding audiences for Black artists working to redefine their place in the American musical canon. To identify the residency artists, WXPN partners with the Black Opry collective, which offers a platform for Black musicians and Black fans of country, blues, folk, and Americana music.

EgoPo Classic Theater 

Ramayana in FDR Park 
EgoPo collaborates with two Indonesian theater companies, Papermoon Puppet Theatre and Kalanari Theatre Movement, to present a contemporary retelling of the ancient epic poem Ramayana. The new interpretation explores the crossing of cultural borders and blends contemporary and traditional puppetry, dance, music, and theater. The performance takes place in an open-air tent in South Philadelphia’s FDR Park, a long-time gathering spot for the city's Southeast Asian immigrant communities.

Mural Arts Philadelphia  

We Here 
A public art project led by ceramist and Pew Fellow Roberto Lugo explores pottery, poverty, and representation in Lugo’s home community of Kensington. Monumental ceramics inspired by historical vessel forms and traditions, installed at public sites, reflect Lugo’s earliest artistic influences: Kensington’s street culture, graffiti, and hip-hop. Pattern-making workshops invite residents to contribute to the vessels’ exterior designs, and a mobile pottery studio offers the public opportunities to learn about the cultural histories of clay and make their own pieces.

Philadelphia Contemporary 

The Re-Emancipation of Social Dance 
A participatory dance-theater performance, created by choreographer and director Raja Feather Kelly, celebrates the ways Black Philadelphians have choreographed freedom, community, and culture through social dance. Sited in a community recreation center staged as the scene of a house party, the piece interweaves the stories of local dancers with the rich history of one of the city’s deeply rooted and influential art forms.

University City Arts League

What is West? 
Community-designed public art installations express the character and creativity of West Philadelphia’s culturally and racially diverse population. Working in collaboration with lead artists Selina Carrera and Pew Fellow angel shanel edwards, residents engage in discussions and art-making workshops including spoken word, video, collage, and movement-based mediums to produce final works installed at public sites throughout West Philadelphia.

Vox Populi 

Teaching at the End of Times 
A multipurpose mobile classroom provides outdoor arts programming and workshops to promote accessible community-based learning and skill-sharing. Ideas shared in public forums co-hosted by Vox Populi and project partner Tiny WPA contribute to the mobile unit’s design and potential future uses. A corresponding exhibition highlights the sculptural and design solutions of similar mobile teaching projects, and an online resource guide offers lesson plans and documentation of classroom activities.

Bowerbird 

Beyond Borders 
An exhibition and series of live performances and film screenings revisit the multicultural Shiraz Arts Festival, which was held annually in Iran from 1967 to 1977. With music, theater, dance, and film programming, the festival showcased classical, folk, and avant-garde artists spanning generations, languages, and cultures. Building on Center-supported research on effective ways to present this under-recognized history, the project examines the festival’s artistic achievements along with the social and political complexities of its time.

Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania 

Carl Cheng: Nature Never Loses (working title)  
A survey of Carl Cheng’s six-decade career prompts a restoration and reimagining of the Los Angeles-based artist’s cross-disciplinary works from the 1960s to the present. The exhibition showcases a range of works from Cheng’s oeuvre—including kinetic sculptures, photographs, drawings, and video—that address topics such as climate change, discrimination against Asian Americans, and the importance of making art accessible to varied publics.

Japan America Society of Greater Philadelphia 

Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s-1970s 
An exhibition of film and video work preserves and reexamines the contributions and influence of Japanese artists working in the US in the mid-20th century. Japan America Society partners with Collaborative Cataloging Japan to explore previously overlooked archival works by artists including Mako Idemitsu, Kenji Kanesaka, Yayoi Kusama, and Fujiko Nakaya. The exhibition and accompanying publication seek to illuminate the artists’ transnational identities, collaborations with US-based artists, and lasting impacts on both Japanese and American culture.

The Philadelphia Orchestra 

Restoration of Works by William Grant Still 
Performances of music by 20th-century Black composer William Grant Still recover his less commonly known works in concert hall, community, and virtual settings. Though many of Still’s compositions—including symphonies, ballets, and operas—were recognized during his lifetime (1895–1978), his complete body of work continues to be overlooked due to his race. In cooperation with the composer’s daughter, Judith Still, the orchestra works to restore previously neglected musical scores.

The Philly POPS 

The Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia's Tribute to Shirley Scott 
A performance program of Shirley Scott’s most innovative compositions pays tribute to her significant contributions to jazz as both a pioneer of the Hammond B3 organ and a woman bandleader working in a historically male-dominated genre. A Philadelphia native, Scott (1934-2002) was an early proponent of the B3, applying the instrument’s expansive sound capabilities to work that blends bebop, swing, pop, blues, and gospel influences.

Bartram's Garden 

A Storied Landscape: New Public Interpretation at America's Oldest Surviving Botanic Garden 
New interpretive installations and guided tours seek to reveal lesser-known histories within Bartram’s Garden and its surrounding Southwest Philadelphia neighborhoods. Drawing from ongoing research on the National Historic Landmark and contributions from an intergenerational cohort of community advisors and high school students, the project expands the public’s access to stories about the land’s people, geology, and ecosystems, with a focus on Black residents dating back to the colonial period.

Cliveden of the National Trust 

Transcending Thresholds 
New exhibitions and visitor tours focus on experiences of enslavement and servitude as Cliveden expands its interpretation of the site’s history as a residence and location of the 1777 Revolutionary Battle of Germantown. With input from a committee of Northwest Philadelphia community members, the project places greater emphasis on the lives of people who lived and labored at Cliveden, looking outside traditional archives to uncover stories embedded in the site’s architecture, landscape, and material culture.

The Library Company of Philadelphia

Beyond Glass Cases 
New approaches to exhibition design and historical interpretation consider public engagement with controversial artifacts held in the Library Company’s collection of materials reflecting American society and culture from the 17th through the 19th century. The organization collaborates with community members to choose artifacts to be recontextualized and to develop more inclusive exhibitions that express multiple perspectives and go beyond traditional presentation models.

Monument Lab 

Declaration House 
A public art installation, public programs, and a publication reframe the history of America’s founding, centering on the story of Robert Hemings, an enslaved valet who aided Thomas Jefferson at the Philadelphia site where he drafted the Declaration of Independence. The project’s lead artist Sonya Clark, whose work is concerned with national history and memory, develops an installation that shines a light on Hemings’ legacy and the role Black and Indigenous peoples have played in American history.

Temple Contemporary

Black Like That: Our Lives as Living Praxis 
As artists-in-residence at Temple Contemporary, Pat Phillips and Pew Fellows Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Karyn Olivier explore the ways in which Black history and contemporary Black life are intertwined. Each creates new work informed by archival materials in Temple University’s extensive Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection and the artists’ respective research on the histories of various Philadelphia neighborhoods. A community advisory committee led by arts leader Linda Earle contributes to the project, which includes a multi-site exhibition, program series, and digital archive. 

The Fabric Workshop and Museum 

Rose: You Are Who You Eat 
An immersive performance-installation expresses the gender journey of cabaret artist, director, and writer John Jarboe, assisted by performance company The Bearded Ladies Cabaret and filmmaker and production designer Christopher Ash. The self-paced experience unfolds through a series of themed rooms that employ video, music, childhood artifacts, and images to embody Jarboe’s experiences and prompt audiences to reflect on their own relationships to gender. Live performances by other transgender and queer artists complement the installation.

Institute on Disabilities at Temple University 

Rhythm Bath 
A suite of immersive dance performance-installations examines questions of inclusion and exclusion within contemporary performance. Informed by her experiences with her neurodivergent son and collaboration with those who identify as neurodivergent, choreographer Susan Marshall works with set designer Mimi Lien to create performance environments that are welcoming to neurodiverse audiences. Using choreography, textural surfaces, sound, and light, the work encourages different ways of being—where there is no “right” way to be a “good” audience.

TILT, Institute for the Contemporary Image 

Wherever There is Light 
A group of formerly incarcerated artists share their stories and consider the role of art and photography within the US penal system. A project team led by photo and video artist Larry Cook provides the artists with professional support and peer-to-peer mentorship as they produce new works for an exhibition addressing the effects of mass incarceration on people’s lives, families, and communities. An accompanying website offers essays, documentation of the artists’ processes, and resources on criminal justice reform.

University City Science Center 

Futures Without Guns  
Eight artists working in a variety of mediums create new artworks and design propositions envisioning the possibilities for a future free from gun violence. With a focus on Philadelphia, the project invites community members affected by gun violence to share their experiences and, in several instances, inform the artists’ processes. The resulting group exhibition draws on futures thinking and speculative design methods to consider multiple perspectives on and potential solutions to this complex issue and to amplify the role of art in advancing societal change.

Ars Nova Workshop

The Living Temple: Don and Moki Cherry 
A retrospective on the collaboration between Black jazz composer and musician Don Cherry (1936–1995) and Swedish visual artist and designer Moki Cherry (1943–2009) recreates the life partners’ integrated vision of art without boundaries among genres, artistic disciplines, and cultures. Contemporary artist Lisa Alvarado designs an immersive environment to house the exhibition, bringing together textiles, paintings, music, video, and other media.   

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia 

Recomposing the Past: An African American Perspective 
Composer Evan Williams creates new chamber pieces that recompose historical works, placing contemporary and Baroque music in conversation with African American genres. Grounded in minimalist and postmodern music, Williams’ work frequently integrates music from non-orchestral traditions like jazz, blues, and spirituals. For the centerpiece of the project, a Mass inspired by and paired with Antonio Vivaldi’s Gloria is performed by countertenor Reginald Mobley.

Orchestra 2001 

ENGOMA ENTEERA: Classical Music from Uganda 
In a cross-continental collaboration with Ugandan composer Justinian Tamusuza, Orchestra 2001 premieres new works that marry Western classical music with Kiganda folk traditions from East Africa. Tamusuza uses techniques such as prepared instruments, microtones, and polyrhythms to give orchestral musicians tools to emulate the qualities of Kiganda music. Tableaus from Ugandan life are depicted in solos, chamber music, and chamber orchestra pieces conducted by Na’Zir McFadden.

PRISM Quartet 

Generate Music 
A collection of contemporary compositions written by Black and Jewish composers examines the musical traditions and intersections of two diasporic peoples and their roles in shaping American music and culture. Curated by PRISM Quartet and arts leader and visual artist Helen Haynes, the project features composers and musicians such as Tyshawn Sorey (percussion), along with Pew Fellows Susan Lankin-Watts (trumpet/vocals), Diane Monroe (violin), and Ursula Rucker (spoken word).

The Wilma Theater 

HILMA: An Opera (working title) 
A new opera explores the life, work, and spirituality of abstract painter and mystic Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), whose work is now celebrated but was largely unseen until decades after her death. With musical composition by Robert M. Johanson and a libretto by Kate Scelsa, the performance pushes boundaries of opera and traditional biography. The production’s stage design is intended to suggest the immersive experience of standing in front of one of the artist’s massive paintings.