FREEDOM, FIRE, AND PROMISCUOUS MEETINGS:
THE PHILADELPHIA COMMUNITY LYCEUM
Part of the Place Philadelphia project
Curated by Nadine Patterson
April 5th – May 18th |  First Friday Receptions April 5th, May 3rd, 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Gallery Hours Tuesday-Saturday 12 p.m.-  6 p.m.

Nadine Patterson’s exhibit Freedom Fire and Promiscuous Meetings: the Philadelphia Community Lyceum serves as a public forum for the Bride-commissioned play If She Stood by Ain Gordon premiering April 26th. This mixed media exhibit is intended as a Middle Passage continuum experience with soundscape, visuals, found object sculptures, quilts, poetry and film featuring works by Sarah Bond, Theodore Harris, Leon McDuffie, Toni Nash, Nadine Patterson, Lamont B. Steptoe, and more.  In creating this exhibit, Patterson partnered with Sonia Sanchez of the Mural Arts Program, Peace is a Haiku Project with support from historians Denise Valentine and Phillip Steitz. Images were gathered from the Lest We Forget Museum and the Library Company of Philadelphia.  The exhibit designer is Gary Smalls.

Freedom, Fire, and Promiscuous Meetings offers a place for minds to meet and discuss the complex and compelling themes of If She Stood.  The upper portion of the Bride’s gallery will feature interactive opportunities including William Penn Charter School 11^th grade student work created under the guidance of Patterson and Gordon.  Manuscripts of a play and other historical fiction by the students is available to express; visual arts pieces inspired by primary source research done in Philadelphia are on display.

PLACE PHILADELPHIA has been an eighteen month project here at Painted Bride Art Center funded by Pew Center for the Arts and Heritage that has allowed the Bride to commission a theatrical production and arts exhibit that unearths an unknown story of Philadelphia. Playwright Ain Gordon and artist/curator Nadine Patterson discovered the compelling background of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, a group of multiracial women who collectively fought for abolition and founded the women’s rights movement in our city. Visit the Place Philadelphia project blog to explore the expansive connections between the 19th Century issues faced in If She Stood and the 21st Century rights struggles of today.   Our city, Our story. WWW.PLACEPHILADELPHIA.COM. Click here for an audio snapshot of the project.

Ain Gordon’s If She Stood has been supported by The Pew Center for the Arts & Heritage and is made possible in part by support from the National Performance Network (NPN) Performance Residency Program. For more information: www.npnweb.org.

Exhibit Partners
Students  from William Penn Charter School and teachers Cheryl Irving and Lee Payton.
Sonia Sanchez and Mural Arts Program, Peace is a Haiku Song Project
Scribe Video Center

Artists:
Toni Nash
Sarah Bond
Nadine Patterson
Theodore A. Harris
Lamont B. Steptoe
Leon McDuffie, illustrator and bench designs

Image Lenders:

J. Justin Ragsdale & Gwen Ragsdale, Curators Lest We Forget Museum

Library Company of Philadelphia

Historians

Denise Valentine

Phillip Steitz

Gallery Designer

Gary Smalls