Skip to main content

A Busy Morning! - PIFA and How Philly Moves

Two big announcements this morning:

Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA) - launched with an extraordinary $10 million gift from the late Leonore Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation, this festival will take place April 7 through May 1, 2011.  It will involve innovative collaborations among scores of Philadelphia's arts organizations and artists, as well as international artists and arts organizations. The theme will be "Paris 1910-1920," drawing parallels between the artistic ferment that took place in the early 20th Century in Paris, and the artistic energy that is now flowing in Philadelphia. The programming principles will be: Collaboration, Creativity and Innovation. Programming details to be announced in early April, but there were some "teasers" - a first-ever collaboration between the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Roots in performance with "a French chanteusse," and circus artists performing in the grand airy space of the Kimmel Center, as well as outside. To demonstrate the sort of "mash-ups" that will be encouraged, there was a performance by members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, accompanied by two prominent local DJs.

How Philly Moves - is a major new 50,000 sf mural project announced today at City Hall. This project - which will cover a roughly half-mile stretch of parking garage at the Philadelphia Airport - is an initiative of the Mural Arts Program and the artist is photographer JJ Tiziou. Tiziou is photographing a wide array of dancers in Philadelphia in action, and these photographs will then form the basis of the mural, which will be executed by 35 artists and individuals in Mural Arts' workforce and re-entry programs. Kudos to Rina Cutler, Deputy Mayor for Transportation and Utilities for initiating this project and supporting it, and thanks as well to the Airport and the Parking Authority, as well as the other sponsors Bank of America and US Airways. Of course, congrats to the Mural Arts staff and Jane Golden, who seem to never sleep they have so much going on!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Greatest Sacrifice Arts Workers Make for the Arts

With all the financial challenges arts workers are facing these days - struggling to balance the budgets of their organizations, or dealing with salary and benefit cuts on compensation that was modest to begin with - it is easy to view the sacrifices people make to work in this field as being entirely financial. Not to minimize the financial sacrifices - they ARE significant - but I would argue they are probably no more significant than a wide array of professions where people choose to devote themselves to the pursuit of "making the world a better place". This includes early childhood workers, teachers, social workers, the whole world of NGOs working in challenged communities, both domestically and abroad. And the sacrifices all these workers make are also not just financial. We all work long hours, and often under trying and unglamorous circumstances (though to outsiders arts work can seem glamorous). No, I think the more significant - and unique - sacrifice arts worke...
27 comments
Read more

Inside/Outside - Art by Prison Inmates and Ex-Offenders

Leon Jesse James, "Space Modulator", acrylic on board. SCI Graterford The Art in City Hall program of the City of Philadelphia has just opened a new exhibition, INSIDE/OUTSIDE - Art by Prison Inmates and Ex-Offenders . This is a wonderful, powerful, and thought-provoking new show and I encourage everyone to see it. It is open until October 29th, on the secod and fourth floors of City Hall. More information is available here . The show involves participating artists from SCI Graterford, The Philadelphia Prison System, Art for Justice , Snyderman-Works Galleries , Connection Training Services , and the Mural Arts Program 's Youth Violence Reduction Partnership Guild Program, as well as local ex-offenders. Thomas Schilk, "Beetle", melted plastic spoons, paint. When I came to my position in 2008 as Chief Cultural Officer, one of the appeals of the position was the fact that the administration of Mayor Michael Nutter viewed the arts as being integral to virt...
6 comments
Read more

Learning to Practice "Niksen"

[Note - this reflection was originally published in the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation blog and newsletter last year. With the summer of 2024 coming up, seemed like a good time to re-share.]   Last  summer I had the gift of being able to take a month-long sabbatical. (Thank you , Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Board of Directors!) This program was put in place by the Foundation in 2019 and made available to all employees (not just the CEO) but due to COVID all the employees eligible for sabbaticals had to delay taking them for three years. Our program allows for four weeks at seven years of employment. It does not require any explicit work-related learning activities, but it is totally flexible and up to the employee to choose how to use it.   To be honest, I had not taken more than two weeks off from work in my entire adult working life (which is more decades tha n I care to admit). And as in the case of most folks, the decision of what to do became a family conversation...
Post a Comment
Read more