![]() So tell us, who’s new to town? Who’s still there? We’re already irrelevant, but we miss you all. But positively, this helps regenerate new blood, new motivations, new desires. The city actually can’t support all the artists financially or creatively-limits exist. People move, collaboratives dismantle, opinions change. ![]() We saw the closing of Flux Projects, Extra Extra, and Jolie Laide, among others, in a short time period, and remotely learned of Bodega’s recent departure from the city. Following this trend, the arts economy functions, and is guided similarly, as sort of a body of water that ebbs and flows in creative production and output. There are many art schools in Philadelphia that attract national and international student bodies in regularly rotating groups. The frequent question, “Why did you move here?” always struck us as odd. Philadelphia has (finally) seen a steady population increase over the past few years. Every great arts city needs strong leadership to provide ‘smaller’ spaces-commercial galleries, coop and collaborative project spaces, non-profits, academic galleries, studio programs-with both precedent and authority.įlow is key. Fortunately, Philadelphia has two great leaders that continually prove themselves as programmatically visionary-the ICA and the PMA-with the ICA spearheading the risk, supported by a solid granting institution in the Pew. Two words I continue raise in (constant) discussions about how to improve Atlanta’s art scene: risk and vision. Having a year or so now to reflect on our time in Philly has only reaffirmed our beliefs in the people, the spaces, and the scene. And just two years later, this time with a young son, we found ourselves packing for a move to Atlanta for entirely different motivations. My position ending in NYC timed fairly well with the sentiment that we were ready to leave the city and try Philadelphia, knowing that we could remove ourselves from daily New York while still remaining a short bus ride away. Our move to Philadelphia in 2010 was strategically accidental. In the last four years we’ve lived in three wholly disparate cities, each with their own versions of thriving arts economies. Two pieces by Rachel and Trevor Reese and Gabriela Vainsencher
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |