Pressing Change
THE 2024 Linda Dubin Garfield EXHIBITION
A GROUP EXHIBITION by Joy Lai, Sofie Rose Seymour, & Felisa Adderley
On View September 5 - September 22 Opening Reception Saturday, September 7 From 4 - 7 pm Closing Reception and Artist Talk Sunday, September 22 From 12 - 2 pm
About the exhibition:
Pressing Change is an exhibit by educators, interested in the entwined relationship between printmaking, pedagogy, and liberatory practice. There are so many pressing changes needed in our world today – so how do we empower people to use printmaking to leave their mark on the world around them?
Our answers lie in the methodologies of printmaking itself: the matrices of beautiful ideas, the repetition and collaboration necessary for community building, the amplification of voices too vital to be heard only once. And, we imagine pedagogy among our printmaking methods – the matrix of a lesson re-printed across place and time to leave an impression on the lives and learners it touches.
Visiting Pressing Change, we invite you to experience, exhibit as…
Dream classroom
Sub[stitute teacher lesson] Plan
Liberatory workshop
Pressing Change will includea series of installations activated through weekly artist-led workshops, where participants can learn more about how printmaking can be used to create change, and to collectively dream about how best we can learn together.
Pressing Change will be on view in Gallery 1 at Da Vinci Art Alliance starting September 5 until September 22. The opening reception will take place on Saturday, September 7, from 4-7 pm.
Leading up to Pressing Change, Joy, Felisa, and Sofie led printmaking workshops around Philadelphia and integrated some of the produced artworks into their exhibition.
March 2024: Social Justice & Student Advocacy Gelli Print Posters at Girard College, by Girard College 7th graders.
In Middle School Art, students learn about the rich history of political printmaking. Through the "Think, Sketch" Make" framework, students brainstorm ideas that are meaningful to them, and collaborate on the right text, color, and image that connects with their chosen social issue. The printmaking method is cut paper stencils on gelli plates with water-based block printing ink.
"Girard College is a 5-day boarding school for academically capable students, grades 1-12, from families with limited financial resources, each headed by a single parent or guardian. All Girard students receive full scholarships to take part in the school’s strong academic program and to live safely on its enclosed 43-acre campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
May 3, 2024: Cyanotype Collage - Multiple Perspectives on Growth, Drexel Writers Room at the Penn BioPond
Using native plants, their own photographic negatives, and reflective writing, participants created cyanotype collages to explore their roots & growth, connection to home, and the architecture of memory.
June 15, 2024: Cyanotype workshop for Fairmount youth at Corinthian Gardens
"Learn about cyanotype as an art making method and print a silhouette of dried or fallen leaves, plants, petals and other objects gathered from the garden's floor. This artmaking methods allows you to use natural materials right in your neighborhood, and explore the many textures and shapes in nature.
FESPP (Friends of Eastern State Penitentary Park) is a group that was formed by neighbors committed to cleaning up the areas along Brown Street and Corinthian Avenue around the historic Eastern State Penitentiary. The group is not funded by or raising funds for Eastern State Penitentiary. Prior to the neighbors’ involvement, the Park was overgrown with weeds, overwhelmed with trash, and in serious disrepair.
In 1996, FESPP received a Philadelphia Urban Resources Partnership grant and was incorporated as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization. The Brown Street Lawn and Corinthian Gardens were developed from 1996-2000, and the Playpen was constructed from 2004-2005. The Corinthian Gardens area, which includes public gardens, recreation and education spaces, and individual garden plots, officially opened to the public in 2020. FESPP maintains these areas and hosts educational and community-focused events throughout the year."
Wednesday, August 13th, 2024: Printmaking Workshop by Joy at William Way LGBT Community Center
Come learn how to design and carve your own stamps! All materials will be provided. No prior experience necessary. This program was made possible by PAQ’s Microgrant which provides funding to community member ideas.
Monday, August 19, 2024: Stencils - A Handprint On the Wall of The World at Museum of Black Joy
The oldest stencil in the world is a human hand from 40,000 years ago. These handprint stencils are found on every continent, and are some of our oldest human art; we also find them with children’s handprints in high places. They use the same technique as activist stencils we see today. How can we explore this history of lifting up our young people and leaving our mark on the world, using the technique of stencil-making?
Monday, August 19, 2024: Postcard Printmaking Workshop at the Art Department at Parkway Central Library
A free hands-on printmaking workshop led by Da Vinci Art Alliance artists Felisa Adderley and Joy Lai, centered around topics of mass incarceration. Participants had an opportunity to print postcards from carved blocks and add collage elements and typewriter text, then mail them. In conjunction with The Warehouse: a Visual Primer on Mass Incarceration.
Participants used a collection of hand carved stamps to create an image and/or message of encouragement. The resulting postcards will be donated to the Human Rights Coalition, who will send them out with their letters to incarcerated people during their letter writing workshop on September 12 at 6pm at the Drexel Writer's Room.
The Human Rights Coalition (HRC) empowers prisoners' families to be leaders in prison organizing, to teach them how to advocate on behalf of their loved ones in prison, and to expose the inhumane practices of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. HRC hosts monthly letter writing nights every second Thursday of the month to show solidarity, love, and support to our people trapped behind prison walls. Join them this month on Thursday, September 12 from 6-8pm at the Drexel Writer's Room (229 N 34th St., 3rd Floor) for our next letter writing night. Contact: info@hrcoalition.org for more information.
Saturday, August 24, 2024: Let's Talk About Chinatown: No Arena Drag Show
In solidarity with No Arena in Chinatown, “Let’s Talk About Chinatown” and Philadelphia Asian & Queer hosted a No Arena in Chinatown Drag Show! During a pre-show sign-making workshop for the No Arena march on 9/7, Joy Lai taught participants how to carve stamps to use within their design.
ABOUT THE FEATURED ARTISTS
Felisa Adderley is an artist and educator making work in mediums including printmaking, ceramics, metal, and paper-making. She often refers to her practice as "process based”, allowing for textures and shape to reveal themselves on their own, but she also draws inspiration from nostalgia, community, and family heirlooms. She received a BFA in Printmaking from Pratt Institute and teaches 5th-8th grade Art at Girard College.
Joy Lai is a 1.5 generation Taiwanese-American art educator/artist who loves nature, travel, and collaborating with others through play and experimentation. She currently teaches Visual Art at the William Penn Charter School.
Sofie Rose Seymour is interested in the art of teaching and learning, and how together we can use art-making as a tool for community building, historical reckoning, and imaginative future-building. They have taught at public schools in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, covering subjects including Social Studies, Language Arts, Health / Sexuality, and the Arts of Social Change. Their mediums include movement, printmaking, book-making, and pedagogy.
New for 2024! - The Linda Dubin Garfield Track
Named after DVAA’s former Board President, Linda Dubin Garfield, in honor of her lifelong commitment of using art as a medium towards bringing people together and building stronger communities. This fellowship track is awarded to a Philadelphia printmaker or collective. They will develop an exhibition using the medium of printmaking to utilize their Fellowship year and the exhibition space to present collaborative opportunities addressing issues people are facing in Philly and find space towards solutions. (Examples of issues could range anywhere from making our streets safer, to park clean ups, to fundraising for better school conditions, to food distribution for people facing financial scarcity, etc.) The purpose of this Fellowship track is to creatively work towards solutions and use institutional resources to benefit larger needs within our intersecting Philadelphia community.