SPACES

an urban artist-in-residency program at The Village of Arts and Humanities

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Join our projects, artists, and neighborhood in creating SPACE to dream and build.

Our brand new SPACES website, created by J2 Design of Philadelphia, is up for your viewing pleasure! Enjoy multimedia stories about each of our current residencies and watch for past residencies to be added in the coming days. 

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We have a brand new SPACES Website! Visit us at spaces.villagearts.org for full stories and media about all our projects. 

Our International Artist in Residence exhibit launches 12/9. Be there! 

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Thursday, October 13, 6:30 p.m. 2512 N. Alder St.

This Thursday’s 2512 Sessions features Jaquan "Quany The Clown” Fields — an award winning clown. He will discuss other aspects of his practice such as costume and graphic design as well as some of the struggles he as an artist and entertainer has experienced in his career. He will also demonstrate how he has harnessed the positive potential of tools like social media to build both his fan base and his clientele with some key points as follows:

• Social media advertising

• Branding

• Networking through social media

• Connecting with clients

• Photo engagement

• Outsourcing your talent

• Introduction to the art of clowning

• Merchandising

• Capitalizing on media

2512 sessions is a series of artist talks and film screenings organized by Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh as part of his SPACES residency with The Village of Arts and Humanities to foster dialogue, sharing and exchange of ideas. Dinner will be served by Taion Carter from 6pm.

Date: Thursday 13th October, 2016

Time: 6pm - 8pm

Venue: 2512 N Alder St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19133

Some Quany The Clown videos:

Quany on Fox 29 News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqzBshXkOvY&list=UUkco-QWehqpYJ6LmUahxuDQ&index=1

Quany's Show Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxexstZ-ZRY

Lovely buttons (Out Of This World Skit) featuring: Quany The Clown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av3WW0RPW_Q

Juggling Demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91dOGECOOeE&index=2&list=UUkco-QWehqpYJ6LmUahxuDQ

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Our clay teacher Katja McGuirk invited Lanre’s group to share their knot-making and collective conversation with CB Community Schools, a school that serves young people aging out of foster care. This week, healer Mari Morales-Williams worked with them to identify what they wanted to share with the young people, and how. The group played the question game and realized they had a lot of questions about the experience.  Nick spoke up as a leader around what he wanted to share, namely, his life experiences that are similar to theirs -- "we're them" -- and how to create space where it was harder to bid/make fun of the project by having a circle where everyone was equal and everyone's voices were heard. The group identified the fact that the experience of coming to communicate together was what made their time together valuable, not just the money they earned and not the knots they made (new team t-shirt: "it's not the knots").  They talked about sharing the circle with other people as something of value they had to give. On the day of the school visit, the kids came in with lots of big loud energy but settled in pretty quickly and once the fabrics were in their hands got right into it. Will stepped in, asking people to introduce themselves and introducing himself. Nick asked Lanre to introduce himself and he discussed the use of discarded materials, etc. As soon as the theme of memorial was introduced, one of the teachers named a student who'd been killed by police and the students asked if they could make a memorial for the common room where we were meeting. One of the students also made the connection between the knotting and care -- I asked her what she saw when she saw the fabrics, and she said, 'Ariana's [my] hands." The students want to make their own memorial and add it to a larger memorial piece for the exhibit. The teachers told us that it was one of the first times seeing the whole group really engaged, so that was really cool. The entire event felt natural, not scripted, with some nervous or awkward moments but mostly good vibes and easy conversation. We left the teens with a ton of fabrics and the promise to have them come visit the studio. We have a tentative date of Oct. 19 or 20 for a future studio visit. 

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“The last open mic (held inside because of weather) was an amazing event. The participating artists seem to own the space. Quany was a great energy. I felt like I was witnessing the birth of a creative community where the artists were supporting and discovering each other. There was an inclusive energy that welcomed people throughout the night. The singers who came to sing were just as important as people who came to dance or listen.” - Lori Waskechuk, photographer

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Lanre’s artist team collaborated with photographer Breanne Furlong to create these striking images illustrating the concepts of “peace” -- Stanley and Will -- and “entrepreneurship” -- Nick and Anthony. These images are starting points for future performance/collaborative work to be created and shown in the final exhibit, opening on December 9. 

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On September 27, we welcomed curators and artists from around the city to our open studio. Both artist teams shared their ideas and work in progress, and then artists and guests shared a meal together in Ile Ife Park, catered by community members Sherita Dill and Taion Carter. A little power outage created some beautiful candlelight (and phone-light) dining moments. 

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Kwasi Ohene Ayeh works with neighborhood artists Aaron Sawyer, an emerging photographer, and Jaquan (Quany the Clown) Fields, in his artist studio. Kwasi is creating a series of “relational strategies” that invite creative collaborations between community members. The studio space is one site for these collaborations to take place. 

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Pieces coming together. Studio progress with community organizing mentor Grimaldi and Olanrewaju’s neighborhood artists Nick, Ant, Will, and Stanley. The group has identified a unit of creation -- a knotted piece of discarded dashiki fabric. The knotted fabrics began as a small independent project within Lanre’s artist residence, but are growing to become the basic unit of a large collective sculpture. The group will make the sculpture piece by piece in collaboration with other communities, inviting them into the making of the knots and into a conversation about memory and loss. 

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Our August 25 Open Mic was a huge hit in the neighborhood! Village teachers took the lead as musicians in the house band -- playing drums, guitars, and crooning on vocals. Roosevelt, Corridor Manager for the Village, doubled as grillmaster for the hungry masses. Over 25 young artists from around the city performed original work in poetry, dance, hiphop and more on the mic and the party continued until 10:30 p.m. when we literally had to unplug the lights and the speakers. Thanks to all who came out and made it a beautiful event. 

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Olanrewaju Tejuoso has been exploring themes of memorial in the neighborhood and that became very real today as Nandi and Khalid Muhammad, two community members, stopped by the Village and expressed deep sorrow over the loss of their friend, Elaine, in a hit and run accident. This sparked a creative collaboration with Lanre and Grimaldi Baez, community organizing mentor for the projects. Together they helped Nandi and Khalid create a wall of flowers featuring Elaine’s name to contribute to her memorial at Mascher and Lehigh. 

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We’re collecting chip bags for artist Olanrewaju Tejuoso’s project -- they will be washed, turned inside out and turned into gleaming pieces of a large tapestry. Many community members including Jonny Hopkins, our PhillyEarth director, Kwasi, Lanre, and Flaco helped bring these little chip bag collectors to life! 

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Artist Olanrewaju Tejuoso moved into his studio space at 2519 Germantown Ave. Formerly the Acme Wire Building, Lanre’s studio space is rapidly filling up with discarded materials, particularly textiles. Lanre has begun to investigate the theme of memorial, and how objects in public space hold the significance of reverence and memory in our community. 

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Open Mic #2 at the Village, hosted by Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh brought out a diverse crowd to enjoy music by The Urban Shamans, perform poems, improvise dances, sing and create together. 

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View this post on Instagram

Kids break it down at open mic hosted by SPACES Artist Kwasi in exploration of North Philly creative power. #villageopenmic #getfree #northphilly Next Open Mic August 18! (at Village of Arts & Humanities)

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Grimaldi Baez is teaching Lanre's methodology -- creating many small pieces that add up to intricate larger structures -- to our Village youth program. Here, Briyon explains how a 2-d shape can be made into a pyramid and from there, a 3-d pentagonal star.