West Philadelphia uses art to confront neighborhood problems and threats to democracy

Transcript

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Geoff Bennett: Local arts organizations have the power to play a role in everything from community challenges to the vibrancy of national democracy by expanding access to both creating and experiencing art.

That mission drives one of the country’s most vigorous and diverse artistic hubs in West Philadelphia.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown visited for our series Art in Action, exploring the intersection of art and democracy, and our Canvas coverage.

Jeffrey Brown: It was a gathering of gentle movement, some laughs, and plenty of concern…

Man: Never in my lifetime has democracy been more under threat.

Jeffrey Brown: … over how small arts organizations here in West Philadelphia and beyond can meet the moment.

Andrew Zitcer, professor of urban strategy at Drexel University, was one of the organizers of the event titled “Democracy in the Making” with an emphasis on the creative act itself.

Andrew Zitcer, Drexel University: For us, it means that democracy is not something that is either an abstraction or an assumption. It’s not something that’s just out there that’s always been and will forever be and it’s not something that we receive. It’s something that we make together.

Jeffrey Brown: Public Trust, where this group met, is one of a number of small West Philly nonprofit spaces based around a simple, but to Zitcer and others, profound idea about the role artists and arts organizations can play in their local communities.

Andrew Zitcer: The artist as embedded facilitator and storyteller and reflector of community experience is as old as it comes. And so this culture of democracy is reclaiming a very old paradigm for today’s reality.

Jeffrey Brown: One such organization, Writers Room, established by Drexel in 2014 with an unusual goal for a university, to serve as a place for students and community members to write, share and publish their stories together.

Rachel Wenrick, Founding Director, Drexel Writers Room: Think of a time from your past when you experienced a moment of discovery.

Jeffrey Brown: Rachel Wenrick is founding director of Writers Room.

Rachel Wenrick: We’re unique in that we were founded with our students and faculty and our neighbors together.

Jeffrey Brown: Students and community members.

Rachel Wenrick: Yes. There’s not a lot of rooms that you walk into where you’re going to see someone 18, someone 84 who is going to greet each other, know each other, know their histories.

Carol Richardson McCullough, Founding Member, Drexel Writers Room: And when we got the grades back…

Jeffrey Brown: Local resident Carol McCullough is a founding member of the workshop and now adjunct faculty at Drexel.

Carol Richardson McCullough: When you get people together to talk about what it feels like and maybe preserve that talk in the form of writing…

Rachel Wenrick: Yes.

Carol Richardson McCullough: … then you have got good stuff going on.

Jeffrey Brown: It’s one effort to address a history of divisions in an ever-changing community, a 19th century suburban-like setting, an economically depressed 20th century neighborhood, largely African American, major universities, Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania that in this century have continued to expand and buy up properties, helping spur a gentrification that priced or pushed many older residents out of their homes.

It was something Carol McCullough experienced firsthand in 2015, even as the Writers Room was celebrating its successful first year.

Rachel Wenrick: Carol sent me the e-mail that said, “A developer has bought my building and I have to move.”

It was the moment where we understood we are implicated in each other’s stories, right?

Jeffrey Brown: And so the arts-centered, community-driven, affordable housing project Second Story Collective was born, first matching students as renters in local residents’ homes to help with high housing costs, then raising money through state grants to pay for renovations of existing homes so older residents can age in place, and now working with community organizer De’Wayne Drummond and local developer Charles Lomax on the building of 18 homes to be owned by residents, but shared with and rented to students.

The idea, build more affordable housing, generational wealth and a diverse neighborhood, work that’s grown out of an arts project.

Carol Richardson McCullough: Artists do challenge the ways that things are, so they will look for how they can twist that plot and turn it into something positive.

Brujo de la Mancha, Artist: Thank you so much. This is PhillyCAM.org, 106.5 FM’s in the city Philadelphia.

Jeffrey Brown: Another example of hyperlocal art in action here, the work of an artist, educator and activist who goes by the name Brujo de la Mancha. He produces a weekly radio show from low-frequency FM community radio station PhillyCAM. And in a wide variety of ways, including Aztec dance exhibitions, plays and other kinds of arts, celebrates indigenous life in the Americas.

Brujo de la Mancha: I don’t know if you heard about it, but there’s a new petition. They came out with these topics we are now with immigration.

Jeffrey Brown: He uses his various platforms in different ways, including advocating for migrant rights.

Brujo de la Mancha: People can say, yes, he’s a real activist. He’s doing something like that. And I say, no, I’m just an artist. Like, I’m an artist. You can’t categorize my art in any box.

Jeffrey Brown: Today, Brujo says many in his community are in hiding, afraid even to come out to his public performances. But he intends to continue his work.

Brujo de la Mancha: We have to show to people who we are, but there’s many ways to show it. I’m not going to be screaming. It doesn’t get me nowhere. But I can show you the beauty of who we are.

Jeffrey Brown: All of this is now going on in a new political environment, of course, in which universities and arts organizations face challenges, even threats, for diversity and other programs.

And that brings new challenges to Zitcer and other scholars and practitioners of the connection between arts and democracy at the local level.

Andrew Zitcer: It creates a new kind of urgency. It creates a context where mutual aid and solidarity, especially at the local level, is our superpower.

Jeffrey Brown: Are there limits to being so hyperlocal?

Andrew Zitcer: That question of scale is a fundamental question.

So, yes, what we’re doing here in West Philadelphia is hyperlocal. And what’s happening in Chapel Hill or in Detroit is also hyperlocal. But can we create a federated movement of people talking about arts, culture, cities and democracy that gains strength in its networks?

Jeffrey Brown: A big question and a continuing vision that will be refined and refocused as the political times change.

For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown in Philadelphia.