Our 2025 cohort of grantees, along with the news of our new leadership, have made headlines since being announced in December.
“The Center embodies everything I value about arts leadership—intellectual curiosity, rigorous support for artists and arts organizations, and a true commitment to public life,” our new executive director, Christina Vassallo, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
She also spoke with WHYY, detailing her previous time in Philadelphia, when she stepped into the executive director role at Fabric Workshop and Museum in January of 2020. “Two and a half months later, I had to learn how to shut down the museum I was running and keep people safe,” she said. “Despite the pall of the shutdowns and the pandemic, I grew to love Philadelphia very deeply. I’m excited to come back.”
Vassallo’s move to the Center was also covered in ARTnews and Philanthropy News Digest, while our newest grantees were spotlighted in an array of regional and national publications.
WRTI reported on the jazz and classical music connections in this year’s group. Metro Philadelphia featured Eastern State Penitentiary’s project ReVision: Art and Justice. Institute on Disabilities’ You Caught Me on Your Shoulders was highlighted in Dance Magazine, along with fellow grantees Philadanco!, Philadelphia Dance Projects, and Pew Fellow Jonathan González.
"It’s a huge opportunity. One that allows you to dream bigger." - Pew Fellow Kendrah Butler-Waters
In an interview about her Fellowship, pianist and composer Kendrah Butler-Waters told The Philadelphia Tribune that receiving the award is “life-changing” and said it would, among other things, support the development of a seven-part musical series described as “a love letter to Philadelphia.” The project is already in development, and its first installment, The Commissioned Jawn, was released on January 9th. “It’s a huge opportunity. One that allows you to dream bigger,” she told the Tribune.
Yolanda Wisher, senior curator at Monument Lab (and a 2015 Pew Fellow), spoke with Chestnut Hill Local about [birdsong], a Center-supported series of environmental soundworks to be installed across the city, creating “a living monument to Philadelphia’s birds.” Wisher explained, “We want everybody to be able to have a moment to reflect, enjoy, and celebrate these connections, this human-animal species connection that we have.” The paper also interviewed multi-disciplinary artist José Ortiz-Pagán, who said receiving a Pew Fellowship was very affirming: “Your confidence is definitely strengthened. Not because you doubt your work, but because sometimes things in your work get lost in translation…Understanding that other people saw through that complexity doesn’t feel bad.”
In December, Pew Fellow Jos Duncan Asé visited WURD Radio in Philadelphia to speak with host Tiffany Bacon about her newly awarded Fellowship, and the grassroots nature of her work as a documentary filmmaker who focuses on her community. “Especially as Black people, our stories have been told through so many different lenses,” Duncan Asé said. “So for me as a Black woman to pick up my camera and say I am going to be the one to tell the story…it has given me a kind of power in my life. I hope that being on this prestigious list gives people who are searching for a model something they can reference.”
In Philadelphia Magazine, food critic Jason Sheehan applauded chef and visual artist Omar Tate on receiving the Fellowship. “Food is never just food, right? Even the blandest, dullest meals you eat come with a history and a backstory…,” he writes. “Food in general…has a narrative…A big part of Tate’s work…is about telling those stories, making sure any of us lucky enough to find our way into Honeysuckle’s dining room understand them and remember them.”
And in Philadelphia Gay News, a story profiled two Pew Fellows whose work centers on queer themes: writer Emma Copley Eisenberg and performer and director Rose Jarboe. Eisenberg told PGN that the Fellowship would allow her space and freedom to explore “deeper, riskier work,” letting her “engage in difficult questions without fear.” Jarboe echoed the sentiment and said she’s honored to be in the cohort along with textile artist and costume designer Rebecca Kanach, with whom she partners in Bearded Ladies Cabaret. Jarboe calls the Fellowship “a beautiful acknowledgement of 16 years of work in Philadelphia and the constellation of queer people who’ve built the cabaret together.”
